With her nose in her phone and her thumb flying across the screen, Bek grabs her purse and gets out without question.
I switch my camera onto video and hold it to my ear, making sure it faces the law firm’s parking lot. Daniel Young leads the woman to his car, a very sleek, silver Jaguar, and kisses her passionately before he opens the passenger’s door for her.
I look away, my eyebrows shooting up. This guy is as discreet as a spider in a sorority house. Clearly, he doesn’t care who sees him screwing around on his wife.
These guys make me so annoyed, but they also make me happy in a sadistic kind of way because it’s an open-and-shut case. It’s never taken me more than three trips to get proof of a cheating husband when they’re this… I want to say careless, but not bothered is a better description. They just don’t care who sees them.
Good for me, bad for their spouses.
I suppose that’s the balance of the universe.
When Daniel Young gets into the car with his young, hot bit of stuff, I drop my phone back into the pocket in the door and wait for Bek to come back.
It buzzes almost as soon as I drop it. Sighing, I take it back out and open the text flashing on screen.
Get your ass to the station. 10-57.
Four numbers.
They paralyze me.
10-57.
Missing person.
I all but fall into the station, my heart racing. I think I broke almost every road law ever written—and the ones that aren’t—on the way back from Austin. I sure as hell know I’ve never made the trip that quickly before.
Things also learned: driving at illegal speeds makes my car guzzle gas faster than a porn star guzzles a mouthful of cum.
The more you know and all that.
Charlotte is taken aback at my hasty entrance. I left Bek to walk the few blocks back to the office at her insistence.
“You lookin’ for Detective Nash and your brothers?” Charlotte asks.
“I’m lookin’ for whoever texted me twenty minutes ago and scared my fucking kidneys outta my body.”
Devin shoves his head through the door that leads to the stairwell with a grim look on his face. “Here.”
I tap the surface of the reception desk in acknowledgement to Charlotte then walk as fast as my four-inch Louboutins will allow across the floor. I draw more than one stare, but I ignore every single one.
“I swear, if it’s a woman,” I whisper to my brother.
He draws in a deep breath. His nostrils flare with its intensity. My heart sinks¸ and a lead weight settles into a pool of regret and dread in the pit of my stomach. Dev takes my hand with a regretful squeeze, but he doesn’t let go as he leads me up the flight of stairs to the main briefing room.
God, every step echoes like a pin dropping in the darkest depths of a cave.
Dev holds my hand as we step into the briefing room. Trent, Brody, and Drake are all seated already, and there are a few other officers in the back I recognize. Mayor McDougall and Jessica are on the other side of the room. Jessica is as far from Drake as possible, and I won’t deny that that makes me happier than it should.
The look on Sheriff Bates’s face is grim, and worry is coming off him in waves. You could bottle it—it’s that strong. A picture of a young, smiling woman is attached to the whiteboard behind him. My stomach drops as I sit on the chair next to Drake. He squeezes my hand briefly.
“Annabelle Porter,” Sheriff Bates says slowly, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his pants. He paces back and forth in front of the board. “Twenty-one, originally from Wisconsin. Studying psychology at the University of Texas, Austin. And, according to her roommate, she didn’t return from the fair last night, and she hasn’t been in classes all day.”
“Is there a boyfriend?” Trent asks, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. “Could she be there?”
“Yes. Billy Cooper. Lives just off campus. He works in a bar downtown and was there from six until two in the morning. He hasn’t heard from her and they usually meet for lunch when he isn’t working.”
“Could she have met someone?” Detective Johnson asks, leaning against the wall.
Sheriff Bates sighs and rubs his face. “She’s been dating Billy for a year, and both he and her roommate, Demi Peters, laughed off the idea. She’s totally in love with him. Usually, we would tell them to come back in forty-eight hours if no one has seen or heard from her then, but Detective Messina passed it on for us to investigate given the recent…incidents.”
The thought that Annabelle, the pretty girl with the dark hair who’s laughing in the picture on the board, could be in the same state as Toni and Melissa is a sickening thought. My stomach is churning at the idea that a third person, a third young girl with so much life left to live, could be in a field somewhere, and it makes me want to throw up the coffee I just finished.
“We already have the fields surrounding the fair being searched,” he says, meeting my eyes as if he just heard my thoughts. “If we find a body, we could have a serial killer on our hands.”
Mayor McDougall coughs and stands up. He joins the sheriff at the front of the room, and his hard, amber eyes scour it. “I expect you all to move fast to resolve this matter. The chances of us keeping this quiet if people keep dying is very slim, and it goes without saying that this could ruin the town’s reputation.”
My eyebrows shoot up, and Drake pinches the side of my thigh. I snap my teeth together to keep my temper in check. I do glare at him though. Pinching me. Asshole. All he’s done is reinforce that this isn’t a damn dream like I was initially hoping.
One day, it will be.
I hope.
I tune back into the mayor’s droning. God, listening to him is like having that static radio frequency taunt you with your inability to find something worth hearing.
“…businesses will suffer and the annual fair will be canceled. It reflects badly on us all.”
One day, I’m going to take this pompous, pigheaded son of a douchemonkey to a murder scene and let him see what’s truly bad in this world. Or I could just put a mirror in front of him. Maybe then he’ll also see how stupid his haircut is and that we all know that bald patch really is a bald patch.
If he paid for a little less freaky sex, he could probably get a hair transplant. Maybe even a personality one if he paid enough.
“Earth to Ms. Bond,” the mayor drawls.
I look up. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”
Amber eyes slice to Drake. “Perhaps you should remember you have a job to do instead of—”
“Finish the sentence,” I snap. “I dare you.”
His expression turns to thunder, lines forming across his forehead in deep, angry grooves. He looks a bit like a pissed-off pug. “Control your temper, Ms. Bond. Remember who employs you.”
I cross one leg over the other and fold my arms. Remember who employs you indeed, you smarmy little prick. “Seems to me, sir, that you need me more than I need your employment. Once again, I’m ignoring my job, my employees, and my business to do your bidding. If you’d rather not employ me, perhaps your assistant would relish stepping into my position. I’d imagine she could find lots of information out at the hair salon. Perhaps the shoe store?”
If looks could kill, Jessica would be getting arrested for murder right now.
“Noelle,” Trent hisses, glancing at Sheriff Bates.
I ignore him, focused fully on the mayor. Like Sheriff Bates is going to say anything. The man is “coughing” into his hand.
Mayor McDougall’s intense gaze is chilling, and his lips tighten. “You’re incredibly lucky you’re good at your job, Ms. Bond. Jessica.” He turns his back to the room, waving his hand for her to follow.
She gets up, tugs her blouse down, and shoots me a dirty look.
And people say I have a bad attitude.
The door slams behind her.
Drake groans and leans forward. “You can’t help yourself, can you, sweetheart?”