Sharp Absence (Sharp Investigations Book 1)

by Kate Anders

  I squeeze his hand because I don’t know what to say. His words ring true, they bounce around in my head for a while. They are the words I knew in my heart but haven’t been ready to hear yet. Tingling hits my eyes and I know tears are trying to escape. I lean my head down to Will’s shoulder, trying not to put more of a burden on Will but not willing to give up this moment.

  We sit there in silence for a while, side by side, hand in hand, my head on his shoulder. The amount of time I’ve known this man is next to nothing, but it feels like we are in it together, and his strength is the only thing keeping me together right now.

  After some time passes Will finally breaks the silence. “Come on, it’s after one and we’re supposed to meet the police early tomorrow, let me take you home.”

  “I don’t want to,” I whisper.

  He pauses and lets it sit in the air for a while. “Because she’s not there?” he asks softly.

  I can’t bring myself to answer, just sniffle as the tears finally start to break free. My hand tightens around his, trying to steal his strength.

  “It’s okay,” he assures me as he reaches his other hand over to hold my small hand in both of his.

  “I can just stay here, if it’s okay?” I look up to ask.

  He reaches up to wipe the tears from my cheek. “I can’t let you sleep on the floor here, there isn’t a pillow or blanket to speak of. But I do have a guest room if you want?”

  Shock rushes over me. He’d let me stay at his house? “Really?”

  He nods.

  “I don’t want to impose, I can just go back to my place if you would rather, it’s okay really,” I stammer.

  “Kenz. Really, it’s fine. We have to get up in a few hours anyway, this way we can just go to the meeting together.”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  Will keeps looking at me a little while longer before finally letting go of my hand and starting to stand up. “Stay here, let me get everything all ready to go.”

  I nod and spend the next couple of minutes watching him move around the office. First to turn off the coffee maker. Next, to put all the glasses into the small dishwasher in the kitchenette before turning it on to run.

  He methodically goes throughout the office and puts things back where they belong, navigating around the clutter without so much as a second thought. It’s like he’s memorized the maze and doesn’t even have to look down to make sure he isn’t going to trip over something.

  He also seems to have a security routine he runs through as well. Checking each of the windows to make sure they are locked and bolting the back door. By the time everything is done and secure, I can feel my eyes starting to get heavy again, even though I’m sure it’s only been a few minutes since he got up. Pains me to admit it, but I get why he kept offering to drive me home. At this rate, I’m sure to become a statistic about people getting into accidents after falling asleep at the wheel.

  It’s not until I hear Will clear his throat that I realize my eyes have closed and I’ve started to drift off. When I open my eyes, I see his hand close by, offering to help me up.

  Within a minute or two, we are out the door and Will is setting the alarm system for the office, before taking my arm and helping lead me over to his truck.

  “Do you need anything from your car?” he asks as we arrive at his truck. He opens the passenger side door for me before helping me up into the seat.

  “My gym bag has an extra set of clothes and supplies,” I mumble.

  “Pass me your keys.”

  Next thing I know, I feel the truck jolt as Will closes the door after he has retrieved my bag and is already in the cab. The heater is already on and the warmth is filling the cab nicely.

  Will reaches back behind the passenger seat and produces a scruffy-looking blanket that looks like it’s well used, before spreading it out over me. “I’ll wake you up when we get there,” he assures me.

  It doesn’t take long after that for my eyes to start to close and the gentle rumble of the truck to lull me back to sleep.

  My nap on the way to Will’s house is enough to make sure that I’m fully conscious when I get out of the truck and approach the house. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Maybe an apartment with a lot of amenities so he could just do everything at his building. No, that’s not him, too many people.

  Will strikes me as more of the loner type.

  Maybe I was expecting more of a bachelor pad. Something small and just kept up enough to be considered respectable, but not much beyond that.

  The state of his truck should have been my first indication that I should have had higher expectations.

  It’s late so I can’t make out everything in the darkness, but from what I can tell, his place is beautiful. There are huge swaths of pine trees on either side of a well-kept front lawn. Complete with nicely landscaped bushes and flower beds. He also has some really nice outdoor house lighting, because even though it’s pitch black outside, the lighting makes sure that no matter where you are near the house, your path is fully illuminated.

  I have a brief moment where I consider if he bought the place like this before I quickly discount it, he seems like the kind of control freak who would have done all this himself on his days off.

  The house itself is typical of North Carolina, built with a substantial amount of brick with siding mixed in, the front littered with plenty of windows for an abundance of natural lighting. I can tell just from looking at the outline of the front of the house that this place is packing a fair amount of square footage.

  Definitely not a bachelor’s pad.

  No, this is much more a family home.

  But even with as little as I’ve gotten to know him over the past couple of days, I have no doubt that he lives in this house all by himself. The consummate loner.

  “You coming?” Will calls out from near the front door, my gym bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Sorry, I was just—”

  “Surprised?” he says with a laugh.

  “Impressed,” I admit. “It’s beautiful. Really.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbles. “Come inside.” He motions for me to follow him inside before he goes through the front door.

  From everything I can see in the night light, the house is impeccable. Someone took a lot of time picking out everything and making sure it was installed just right. The whole thing does not seem to jibe with the way his office looks. One is a complete mess in a building that’s in good working order but nothing to write home about. Whereas the house is probably one of the best-kept houses on the block if not the neighborhood. Kind of like how his house is so nice, so is his truck.

  Will is kind of a dichotomy I haven’t yet figured out.

  As soon as I walk through the front door, I can tell the inside matches the outside. Everything is well kept and nice looking, albeit a bit on the minimal side.

  “Come on, I’ll show you the guest room.”

  I follow him up the stairs and to the right before he stops in the doorway of a nice-sized bedroom. It’s full of simple furniture and a nicely made bed with a gray comforter on it, but nothing in the way of decor.

  “Bathroom is across the way, I’m sure there are some spare supplies in there if you need some toothpaste or anything,” he tells me while gesturing to the door across the way from the bedroom. Pointing to the end of the hall, he tells me, “I’m over that way. If you need anything, just give me a knock. You’re welcome to anything in the fridge if you get hungry.”

  “Thanks, Will. Really, thanks for everything.” I quickly wrap my arms around his waist and press my head up against his chest. It only takes half a second before he wraps his arms around my shoulders and gives me a gentle squeeze.

  “You’re welcome. I don’t want to tell you that everything is going to be okay, but I will tell you that I’m in this with you. We’ll figure this out, I promise.”

  I look up at his kind eyes, still wrapped around him before weakly smiling at him. “Thank you for not sugar
coating everything for me.” I slowly release him and then start walking toward my bed for the night.

  “Night, Kenz.”

  “Night, Will.”

  After an unsettling dream when I could see Clara but yet couldn’t get to her, I knew there was no way I was ever going to get back to sleep. The sun hadn’t come out yet, it was still probably a half hour away before it was due to start coming up for sunrise.

  I didn’t bother changing out of my clothes from the night before, so I don’t really worry about rolling out of the bed and heading downstairs to the kitchen.

  The kitchen is just as minimal as the rest of the interior of the house is, and after checking out the fridge the one thing I am sure of is that he is definitely a bachelor. He has beer, pickles, ketchup, and some orange Gatorade. Clearly this man eats all of his meals out.

  After digging around for a glass and getting myself some water, I find myself sitting at the kitchen table staring out into the blackness.

  I’m nervous about meeting with the police. So far, I haven’t had a lot of luck at getting them to listen to me. My head knows this is not how it’s going to play out this time though, we have too much evidence to just ignore. There are too many dots that are connected and too many people that just left town only to never be heard of again.

  I should be excited about the progress. But it’s hard to be excited about something that almost definitely means that Clara is off somewhere in a sinister situation and not out sipping martinis. I wish she had just told me what was going on. Even if there was no way to prevent what happened, at least I would have already had an idea of what was going on, I would have been five, maybe ten, steps ahead and we wouldn’t have wasted all this time trying to find the pieces and put them together. I want to be so mad at her, hell, I am mad at her. But at the same time, how can I be? Who knows where she is right now, and she was clearly trying to do the right thing by these women. She’s not the bad guy here so I can’t justify being this mad at her.

  So instead of focusing on it, I just sit at this kitchen table feeling the coolness of the glass in my hand and wait for the sunrise. Wait for a new day to bring new challenges and new facts that are sure to break my heart even more than it already is.

  Instead, I think about the people who have come together to help me in this. How good it was to see Joe again, and how much I missed being a part of his family. How he helped me when it would have been the easier thing to just not get involved. How because of him, I was able to connect with Will.

  How wrong I was about Will. That first meeting he just came off as a short, abrupt, kind of jerk who wasn’t really interested in doing any work. The more I think about it, I can’t actually say I’ve seen him do much work. But he knows every detail of this case. He got Blake invested, and without her, we never would have made the connections that we have so far.

  These people are good at what they do and in only a few short days, they have shown how invested they are in this. It feels like a team. A team where I’m on equal footing. I might not have their skill sets, but they have trusted me at every turn to point them in the right direction.

  Blake might come off a little abrasive, but she’s a powerhouse. I think she and Clara are going to get along great when they meet.

  And Will. I was so wrong. I thought he was going to be an epic jerk who I had to push every step of the way. Instead he holds my hand and worries about how much sleep I’m getting. He delivers the bad news but has this way about him that has me believing that he’ll catch me if I fall. Will makes me feel so safe without even trying. I don’t remember the last time a man made me feel that way.

  I’m just comfortable with him. When he’s in my personal space, it doesn’t bother me. When he reaches out to hold my hand, it feels natural. When his fingers brush my cheek to wipe away my tears or to tuck hair behind my ear, it just feels like something he’s been doing forever. And it’s only been a couple of days.

  I honestly shouldn’t be thinking about things like this. My best friend is missing and we seem to have stumbled onto some sort of serial case, and here I am thinking about a man. The truth is I’m lonely. I probably have been for some time now. With Clara gone, it’s just become more obvious.

  It’s the wrong time to be attracted to a man. My head knows that. But the rest of me? The rest of me wants to be comforted. Wants to go home to an apartment that isn’t just four empty walls. I want the security of not being on my own when the bogeyman comes to call.

  But it’s more than that. It’s someone to share meals with, to talk through the random things that run through my head. Especially now. I have all these random thoughts about what is going on, and sure, most of them are probably nuts and aren’t going to be helpful. But I want someone to work through them with. I want someone to hold my hand when the floor drops out on me, which seems to be happening every couple of hours.

  When I first met Will, he came across as so abrasive, I thought he was going to be the biggest jerk on the planet, but his actions say something entirely different. Maybe he’s just a good guy who feels sorry for me. Maybe he has a soft spot for me because of Clara. Is it even possible that it’s something more? Could he be attracted to me too? I have no idea.

  The real question is, am I willing to put everything on the line and risk getting closer to him when I still need his help with Clara?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “BROKEN” BY LOVELYTHEBAND

  “You ready for this?” Will asks as he turns the key in the ignition, starting up his truck.

  “Yep,” I say with a shiver as I reach over to the knob that controls the heater before turning it all the way up.

  “Do we need to talk about how the meeting is going to go?” he asks as he starts reversing the truck out of the drive and begins our journey.

  “I figured we were just going to lay everything out for Joe. You know, tell them everything we’ve learned,” I say, confused.

  “So you’re okay with telling them everything?”

  “I honestly never even considered not telling them everything. I need everyone looking, which means ringing as many alarm bells as I can.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Did you think I wanted to hold something back?” I ask, confusion still lacing through my voice.

  “Not all my clients are comfortable being so forthcoming with the police,” he explains. I turn in my seat to face him, hoping the look on my face conveys my disbelief, or rather non-disbelief, that there are people out there who don’t want to share information with the police. Clearly, he gets the message when a deep chuckle comes out of him. “To clarify, I don’t hide important information from the police, no matter what my clients want.”

  “Do your clients know this?”

  “They would if they read the details in the contract I have them sign,” he says with a shrug. Oh yes, the terms and conditions, like anyone reads those. Wait a second.

  “I didn’t sign a contract.”

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t I sign a contract?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It just does,” I sigh with exasperation.

  “Well, you didn’t.”

  “I know, but why?”

  “It didn’t seem necessary.”

  “Not to sound like a broken record, but why?” I ask one final time.

  He pauses before answering. “Because when I finally decided to help you, I knew I was going to see it through, no matter what a contract said.”

  My eyes blink slowly as I focus more on Will’s face. My body deflating into the seat as the rapid-fire back-and-forth from just a few moments ago turns into something else. Is he trying to say he would have helped me without the money, or if I give up, is he going to keep going? Why would he do that?

  “What do you mean?” The words leave my mouth slowly.

  “Just what I said, I’m going to see it through.” The determination in his voice
is more than a little surprising. He never wavers, though, just keeps looking forward through the windshield at the morning traffic in front of us as we head into Durham.

  “So if I run out of money or get hit by a—”

  “I’m seeing it through, MacKenzie. No matter what.” I’ve never heard him call me MacKenzie before. I kinda like it. Especially when he says it while declaring he’s going to see this through to the end. Not gonna lie, it was more than a little hot.

  But hot or not, I still couldn’t figure out why.

  “Why would you do that?”

  I can tell by the large sigh that escapes him that he really doesn’t want to continue this line of questioning.

  “Can’t we just leave it at I’m on the case?” His thumbs start tapping against the steering wheel in a steady rhythm. A nervous tic, maybe? My curiosity is piqued.

  “Sure we can. But if you want to tell me, I would really like to know.” He sighs again. “Look, I’m not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I know why I am in this. I know her, I love her, she’s my family. And there is no doubt about it that I’m ecstatic that you are in this for the duration. I’m more grateful than you will ever know. But it doesn’t mean I’m not curious. You know so much about what’s going on in my life right now, and I know so little about you. What can I say? Inquiring minds want to know, I guess,” I say with a shrug before turning to look out the window. Hopefully, not staring at him directly would feel less like an inquisition, and he might actually open up to me.

  The cab of the truck fills with a heavy silence. Both of us kind of waiting each other out. After a decade of grief in a house where no one spoke to each other, I was beyond comfortable sitting in uncomfortable silences. If it was an Olympic sport, I would win gold every single time.