She's No Beauty Queen

Lily didn't have any duties pertaining to her contract on Thursday so she spent the day focused entirely on homework, though she did take a break to play Mario Kart with her siblings for a while. She was still worried about Angel but there wasn't anything she could do about that right now.

She texted Mark between classes to ask how Eddie was doing and the response wasn't encouraging.

'Not good. The hacker believes the kidnapper is a part of the media though based on his camera bag. He's trying to focus on the people who were there covering the fundraiser but it's possible this guy is an amateur paparazzi with a regular job who happened to be there as well'

That didn't narrow down the suspects at all! She hoped the hacker was able to find better information on everyone that had been at that event soon.

===

On Friday night Lily had to go to a cocktail party organized by some of the pageant sponsors. Mark would accompany her as her escort and make sure she didn't talk to any one person long enough to give herself away.

The stylist did her up again with an elegant updo and evening appropriate makeup. She looked fantastic in a knee-length emerald green cocktail dress that made her eyes pop and a pair of strappy black heels.

After he finished his work Mark drilled her on what she needed to know about cocktail party etiquette for the second time (the first had been when he picked her up). That was when Eddie walked into the room.

He was a total wreck. In the two days since Lily had last seen him his dark circles had gotten much worse. He was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and pajama pants and he still had bedhead even though it was evening.

"Hey, are you alright?" she asked in concern.

"No. The hacker just called about a lead…but it's not a good one. He checked out all of the members of the media that were there and one of them has previously had a restraining order filed against him by a semi-famous YouTube singer. She's blonde with green eyes too," Eddie said grimly.

Mark's brow furrowed. "Did he get an address?"

"The last known address of this man is an apartment in a busy complex. The hacker already went over to check it out himself and someone else was living there. He could be anywhere as long as it's in driving distance of Monterey."

That wasn't good. Finding one person with no other clues would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

"What about his job?" Lily asked.

"He's a freelancer—more commonly known as paparazzi—but he doesn't have a job aside from that. At least not an on-the-books one. So we can't even find him there and follow him to wherever he's potentially keeping Angel," Eddie replied looking like all hope was lost.

Her heart dropped to her stomach. There had to be something they could do. The trail couldn't end here!

But how could they follow him if they couldn't even find him? If he was paparazzi didn't that mean he could show up at another event fairly easily? All they would have to do was follow him back after that.

Lily told them her idea. "Why not wait until he shows up again and follow him there? He'll probably be at one of the events I'm at again soon since they're all bigger ones covered by actual media outlets."

They both stared at her but Mark spoke first. "…do you really think that will work?"

"It's worth a shot."

"But if he really is at other events he might try to grab you too," Eddie said with a heavy sigh. "I can hire a bodyguard so—"

"No," she replied without hesitation. It was incredibly risky but she had a crazy idea. "If he does try something like that it's even better. Trying to follow him we could lose him but if I have a tracker on me you can follow him back more easily."

"Are you nuts?! You want to be bait?" Mark asked incredulously.

Lily winced at his wording. She didn't think of it as being bait. It was more like a daring rescue on her part. Besides, it wasn't like she didn't know how to fight. She used to get into fights all the time. She could potentially help Angel get away to a safer location while they followed after.

"Do you have any better ideas?" she demanded. "I want to get her back and this might be the only way to do it."

Eddie looked up at her with his empty eyes. "Why would you do that for us?"

"Two reasons. Aria needs her mother and I want a chance to meet the sister I didn't even know I had."

Mark wasn't convinced. "There's a lot that can go wrong with this plan. What if he finds the tracker on you and takes it off? Then you're kidnapped too with no way for us to find you. What if he kills you before he takes you to the secondary location? What if we don't get there in time and you're both dead?"

"Mark," Lily hissed.

Eddie was listening! How could he talk like Angel was already gone forever in front of the man who loved her? She glanced over at him nervously but his expression hadn't changed. It seemed he had already thought of that.

"He's right. You don't have to take such a big risk for us when there's a good chance she's already dead."

Did he have to be such a pessimist? Somehow Lily KNEW that she was still alive. She couldn't explain how she knew it, only that she did.

"She's alive," she said firmly. "I know she is. She's alive and waiting for someone to help her so if this is the only way to do it I don't care about the risk. We can potentially negate one of the problems by putting multiple trackers on me; I doubt he would be expecting that even if he does find one."

Family was important to her. It always had been. All her life she had wondered about whatever biological relatives might be out there and now that she had found two she wasn't about to let either of them down when she could actually do something!