Elias was smiling at Maria responding with his usual quiet politeness, he looked up and his calm honey eyes met Sarah's. He smiled, making his dark roots show even more as the light shone over his short midnight black hair. Nodding politely, yet dismissively, at Maria, Elias took a step toward her.
The amount of respect the man influenced in people unconsciously was impressive, Sarah learned that as soon as she went to one of his lectures, the place had been a mess of talking crowds. Elias have went on preparing the course's material not minding them, but as soon as he had lifted his head, straightened his back and readied to speak, every single student was in place waiting for him to start. Sarah never saw such a deep respect and natural leadership until then... And now with Maria who dutifully stepped down.
"It's good to see you, Sarah," he said as he strode toward her revealing a man standing behind him. By now Sarah's heart was a mess; she still wasn't ready to see him again. One month was too short for her to get over it.
Damn you, Adam!
"You too, Elias" her tone professional, she switched her gaze to the other person behind him, after she gave Maria a small smile and thanked her. The woman, to Sarah's surprise, smiled back and left the reception hall.
"Sarah, this is Ray Clayton, from Clayton law firm. Ray this is Miss Sarah Keissi, she's a researcher here specialized in"aromatic and medical plants"," Sarah smiled politely at the man who seemed to be identical to Elias, only taller and with black eyes instead of his honey-colored. Elias seemed to pick on her observation because he said.
"Ray is also my cousin." Sarah nodded; noting that the resemblance stopped there, Ray was clearly sharper and keen to have heated confrontations, if the challenging sparkle in his eyes didn't speak out loud. While Elias seemed to be a natural leader with influential respect from people, Ray won his place by confrontation and proving himself.
"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Clayton."
"Likewise, please call me Ray. I have heard a great deal about you from Elias."
Sarah smiled at his comment, ignoring what Elias might have told him about her, and asked the main question. "So what brings the two of you here?"
Darkness flew over the young men, and Elias looked around before he said uncomfortably. "Is there somewhere private where we can talk?"
"Sure, follow me."
She led them to the conference room. As they sat down, Elias was about to speak when her phone started buzzing, she winced as she saw the ID and the number of missed calls. She looked up at her guests, planning to ignore the call when she found Elias saying.
"Go ahead and take it, I'm sure it's important."
She met his gaze and he gave her a hand gesture to take it. She looked down at her phone once again and said "are you sure? I can call back later, I bet it's no emergency."
"No, go ahead. I'm certain you will need all your concentration with us when we start." Ray announced siding with his cousin.
Sarah slid off her seat toward the corner and accepted Mrs. Eva Wattani's seventeenth call, trying not to think of the meaning of Ray's words. As soon as it connected, she heard Eva's eager voice from the other side as if she was waiting for the call to connect counting each beep. Add that to the fact that she and Eva never have social calls and her phone number just happened to be there because Sarah had to pick up something from her for P.Wattani, it was easy to give her an idea about what Eva called for.
"Hello? Sarah"
"Hi, Eva how're you?"
"I-uh, I 'm not sure. Did Ernest come to the lab today, I have been calling him and he's not responding."
"No, he's not here yet. Is everything okay? It's not like him to be late."
"I don't know Sarah. He didn't come home yesterday and I have been calling him all night. I'm really worried."
"It can't be bad, could it be that he had a conference and didn't tell any of us?"
"No, I do his schedule, he doesn't have a conference today. In fact, he has a lecture in an hour or so at the Institute..." After a slight pause, Eva added awkwardly. " look I don't mean to sound paranoid be with everything that has been happening, I was worried"
Sarah paused not knowing what to say, she knew Eva can't call the police until twenty-four hours after P.Wattani disappeared, which means until later this evening the police can't do anything. P.Wattani is never late and never misses a lecture without at least warning both her and Adam to replace him, and as far as she knew, he didn't ask them to. Sarah sighed feeling her heart constrict at the possibilities her mind was suggesting. And they weren't pleasant... She knew the professor and his wife weren't getting along well, and it could be just a consequence of their fight that he left home last night, but his absence this morning was disturbing, P.Wattani wouldn't miss work even if he and his wife divorced.
Remembering she had company she looked back at her guests, Elias was looking at her frowning, while Ray was busying himself with some papers. Elias never tried to hide the fact that he was indeed hearing her conversations...
"Eva, how about we wait for an hour, if P.Wattani doesn't come I will personally inform the administration and call my brother."
Sarah's Brother, Austin, was a higher up in the police department. If P.Wattani really went missing, he would be able to find out what happened.
"Sure," came Eva's weak response, the woman's sense of responsibility weighted on her more than her worry for her husband. And that was admirable in itself because P.Wattani haven't been anything but self-absorbed and neglecting in their marriage, as great a scientist as he is, he made a terrible husband and Eva was a patient wife. "I'll be waiting for your call."
"Sorry about that." She apologized as she came back toward the table, not knowing what to say. She still didn't know why Elias came to see her with his lawyer cousin. With what Eva just told her, she didn't want to sit down and pretend that she just had a casual conversation with her boss' wife, she had enough in her plate to do in order to cover for her boss' absence as it is. But, as usual, Elias cut right through her thoughts.
"So it seems like Eva already updated you on the situation." Elias said with a light smile that looked so cold that Sarah felt shivers running up her spine, could it be that Elias knew what she talked with Eva about. Could Elias be involved in P.Wattni's disappearance.