Burned: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (Lords of the City Book 3)

by Alice Ward

  Forgetting about my decision to keep Afghanistan separate from Chicago, I set the picture as my computer’s desktop background, so that, in-between moments of work, I could see a little bit of Seth’s view.

  Things are going good here, his email said. It’s a lot of work around the base. For the season, it’s actually pretty tepid. I have several friends in my unit, so that’s great. Hope you are doing well.

  Now that I had a picture of his surroundings, I began to burn to know more. What was his job on the base? Did he ever go off? Was he near a town or a village? The only thing he’d told me before leaving was that he’d be staying a fair distance outside of Kabul.

  I wrote him back, asking my questions, then went about the rest of my work day, forcing myself to wait till everything was wrapped to check my personal email.

  At five, with anticipation making my fingers move quickly, I checked my inbox.

  No new messages.

  I calculated the time difference in my head. Kabul was nine and a half hours ahead of Chicago. So, if it was six p.m. where I was… that meant it was three-thirty in the morning where Seth was.

  Blah. I was being ridiculous. Seth would write back when he had a chance.

  Work done for the day, I headed to London’s apartment for a little pregnancy celebration with the girls. Heather already looked different, all glowy in that way pregnant women get.

  Does Seth want a child? I wondered for the first time.

  We’d never discussed that. We hadn’t known each other long enough to even get to the topic. I couldn’t imagine shooting off the question in an email. A better question might be, Do I want children?

  I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t know why I was even thinking about it.

  Because I wanted Seth, that was why. Right then and there, he was the only thing I wanted.

  Needing to let go a bit, I pushed my two-drink limit and slept on London’s couch, Starlet curled up on the rug next to me.

  Saturday morning, I awoke to a bus rumbling outside the first floor window and someone banging around in the kitchen.

  “Morning sleepy head,” London called cheerfully.

  “Ugh.”

  She came into the living room in pajamas, holding two plates. “I made pancakes. Since it’s the weekend I figured we could carb up and then crash.”

  “Hell yeah,” I agreed, eagerly accepting a plate.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said around a mouthful of food. “Heather and a baby.”

  “Yeah, but it makes sense. She’ll be the perfect mother. It’s us who can’t wrap our heads around the concept.”

  She laughed. “True. Hey, did Seth write you back yet?”

  I sat up straighter and put my plate on the coffee table. “I haven’t checked, but he had to of.”

  London leaned around the side of the couch to grab my purse. She tossed it to me, and I mined for my cell phone.

  Excitement hummed in me while the email app loaded. Maybe Seth would have more pictures. One of him would be great. Even one of his friends he was there with would be satisfying.

  But there was nothing.

  “That’s odd,” I said, my voice hollow.

  “What?” London turned on the TV and flipped through channels.

  “He hasn’t written back.”

  “Oh.” She kept her focus on the screen. “I’m sure he’ll write you later. What time is it there?”

  “It’s past six at night.”

  Somewhere between checking my email and finding nothing from Seth and informing London of the time in Afghanistan, a big ball had formed in my stomach. It felt like pure marble weighing me down.

  Sometimes “instincts” are mistaken for emotional rationalizing that gets way out of hand, and sometimes you have to trust them.

  In this case, I didn’t know what to do. Something wasn’t right.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I started to see London staring at me.

  “He’ll write you back,” she said.

  I gulped. “Yeah.”

  Her eyes fell into slits. “Is there some reason he might not?”

  I slowly shook my head. “No. When he left, we were on good terms.” I remembered the look on Seth’s face right before he climbed out of my car. “He didn’t want to leave.”

  “He didn’t want to leave you.”

  I would have blushed at her words if I wasn’t so worried.

  I carried my phone on me all day, checking it every five minutes to see if Seth had responded. A dull hollowness formed around me, following me to the park to walk Starlet and to the mall with Rory and London.

  By the time I went to bed, he still hadn’t written back.

  When I woke up Sunday morning, there was nothing in my inbox. By Sunday night, real fear took over. I laid awake in bed all night.

  On Monday morning, I knew for sure something had gone wrong.

  I ran my fingers through my hair as I paced around the kitchen. What if he’d gotten injured? Or killed? My breathing sped up and sweat formed on my palms. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let myself think like that. I needed to take a serious chill pill and stop letting my fears guide me.

  What would the army do if something happened to Seth? They would contact his immediate family, of course. And that would probably be that. Would they make a public announcement? We hadn’t discussed this. His dad would know, his mom would know, but I would be left in the dark. I didn’t know how to get in touch with Seth’s family. If he had been injured, would his army friends here in Chicago know? Phil perhaps?

  I quickly logged onto Facebook and checked Seth’s page. The last thing posted, a picture of Starlet looking up at him from my couch, had gone up before he left for training. I clicked on Phil’s face. We weren’t friends, but he had a public profile. The last thing on his page were some pictures from a few days ago, a zip lining trip. I wrote Phil a quick message, explained what had happened and asked him if he had heard anything from or about Seth.

  With my hands shaking, I leaned against the kitchen counter. I needed to leave for work in the next hour, but I couldn’t do it. Not if Seth’s safety was in question.

  Luckily, it was going to be a slow week. I texted the staff, letting them know they had the day off and told Stephanie to reschedule my meetings. The office would be closed until tomorrow. Hopefully, by then I would have everything figured out.

  I checked Facebook again, fed Starlet and let her out… then checked Facebook again.

  Nothing.

  I was at a loss as to what to do next, so I got busy vacuuming the whole house, my phone on vibrate in my back pocket in case a message came in.

  Phil wrote back an hour later. No, he said, he hadn’t heard from Seth. And was everything all right?

  The next avenue seemed the most obvious. Finally, I would get a real answer. Assuming the army was willing to give it. Their protocol was probably to only release information about soldiers to immediate families. So, if something vile had befallen Seth, it was possible I might not get a straight answer. But maybe I could find out if something out of the ordinary had happened.

  A new mission set before me, I rushed into the kitchen, looked up the number and then called the recruiting center where I’d dropped Seth off. A friendly sounding woman answered.

  “I’m looking for information about my boyfriend,” I said, rushing to explain but still be clear and concise. “His name is Seth Allman, and he’s deployed in Afghanistan. I just dropped him off there with you the other week. We’ve been emailing back and forth but he’s not responding anymore, and I was just wondering if you can give me some information. I need to make sure he’s all right. Is there some reason he may not be getting internet at his base anymore?”

  “Let’s see,” the woman said. “I’m not authorized to release any information about—”

  “I understand,” I cut her off. “Can you tell me about the internet situation? Could something have happened to cut it off?”

  “That’s not s
omething that—”

  “I just want to know that he’s all right,” I snapped, then took a breath and reeled it in. Careful, careful. I needed to be careful. “I need to know that he’s not… in a hospital somewhere.”

  She hesitated for a moment. “All right. One minute.”

  A long moment passed. The woman breathed into the line, presumably as she looked up Seth’s information on the computer.

  “Seth Allman,” she finally said.

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “He was deployed in Afghanistan four years ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in Mexico one year ago.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know about that one.

  “But that was the last time he was called to duty.”

  Shock stabbed through my body, making me stumble over my words. “No, that’s… no, that’s not right. He’s in Afghanistan now. He just went there.”

  I took in a sharp breath and sat down at the kitchen table. My blood pressure was rising. If I lost my temper, I also lost any chance of getting information out of the army.

  “No, that’s incorrect,” the woman replied. “I’m looking at the computer right now. Seth Allman.”

  I pressed my fingers against my forehead in frustration. “Could something have happened? Like, maybe there’s something wrong with his file? I dropped him off there myself!”

  “When?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “All right…”

  She didn’t believe me.

  “Tall, brown hair and blue eyes. Did you see him? Can you ask around? Something must be wrong with your computer systems! They must—”

  “I remember him,” she said suddenly.

  “Yes! You do?”

  “Yes, he wasn’t on his way to a deployment though.”

  “Wait… what do you mean? Are you sure?”

  “I’m the only full-time employee here, ma’am. I’m sure. It was a Friday, correct?”

  Something hitched in my chest. “Yes,” I croaked.

  “The young man came in, and we talked, got caught up. He recognized me from last year. Then he asked to use the bathroom.”

  My throat was so swollen that I could barely speak. “And then?”

  “And then he left.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The kitchen shrank around me as I stared out the window. The woman on the phone hadn’t been able to offer me any more information. She swore to me that Seth had not been called to active duty.

  And I believed her. There was no reason not to.

  Beyond that, I didn’t know what to think. None of it made sense.

  A flash of the morning in Seth’s bed came back to me. Tangled up with him in the sheets… and then in the car, his eyes glistening with tears. He hadn’t wanted to go.

  So why had he?

  His pain over leaving had been real. I’d felt it. I hadn’t imagined it.

  And yet he’d still left. But where to? And why had he lied about it?

  I’d dropped him off and driven away, crying and wiping tears from my eyes. Meanwhile, he what? Waited for me to disappear so he could sneak back outside? All the while I was being torn in half.

  And he’d let me feel that way. He’d let me go through that pain.

  No, a voice from deep inside said. He didn’t want to hurt you.

  Something else was going on. Seth had plans he hadn’t shared. The story about Afghanistan, the emails, even the picture. Were they all part of a carefully concocted plan to cover up the truth?

  If so, his falling out of touch hadn’t been part of the plan.

  I wrote Phil back, telling him it was important and giving him my number.

  Because I couldn’t bear to wait around for his call, I grabbed my laptop, settled in on the couch and started doing some detective work. I didn’t know Seth’s mother’s last name, but perhaps she hadn’t changed it after getting divorced. There was a small chance she still went by Allman.

  Ellen Allman.

  I did a few searches for her number or an address. Nothing.

  “Damn it,” I cursed, furiously hitting the mouse.

  There was only one choice. If I wanted to talk to Seth’s mom, I would have to find her. Somehow, I would have to remember the route to her house. I knew the exit, but beyond that, I was at a loss.

  I licked my lips, thinking hard. Seth had driven us there, and it had been at night. Everything would look different during the day. There was a big possibility that I might not find Ellen’s house.

  But I had to try.

  “Come on, Starlet. We’re going for a ride.”

  She ran eagerly to the front door, all wagging tail and ignorance, the dire quality of the situation completely lost on her.

  I gripped the steering wheel as I drove, focused on nothing other than getting out of Chicago. When I finally got to the right exit, I relaxed a bit. This was the right town. I knew that much.

  The exit ramp took me to a stop sign. I hit the brakes and looked desperately in both directions. Which way?

  I closed my eyes, took myself back to that night. I’d been on my phone when Seth took the exit, writing an email to Stafford Scientific. But when the car stopped I’d looked up.

  My eyes flew open. Right. We had turned right.

  I went slowly down the road, studying the scenery around me. Houses close to the road. A shopping center. I found myself on downtown streets, which wasn’t right. I would have noticed if Seth and I had driven through a downtown area.

  Pulling into a driveway, I turned around and headed back in the direction of the highway. Coming back, everything looked different, and it was even harder to remember what street we’d turned on.

  Then I saw it. Magnolia. A flash came back to me. I remembered the name of the street because I loved the smell of magnolias. When I was a kid, I would visit my grandparents in South Carolina and climb up in the big magnolia tree in their back yard.

  Nearly ecstatic, I turned onto Magnolia Street. Now I knew where I was. I was almost certain of it. One block and then a right…

  There it was. The two-story brick house.

  “Yes,” I hissed. “Thank God.”

  There were no cars in the driveway, but the garage was closed. I pulled into the drive and rolled the window down slightly for Starlet.

  “Stay here, girl,” I told her. “Be right back.”

  Leaving her in the car, I ran to the front door and knocked. Starlet whined from the car, wanting me to come back. I knocked again, this time as loud as I could. I waited another minute. Maybe Ellen was in the shower and on her way out. I knocked again.

  “Shit.”

  Jumping off the porch, I jogged to the garage door. If I stood on my tiptoes, I could just see in through the little windows. The garage was empty. Ellen wasn’t home.

  I took a deep breath to center myself. That was all right. She probably went out to do some errands or something. Or maybe she was at work. Seth had never told me what she did, so I had no clue whether she was retired, working a regular nine-to-five job, or what.

  I would wait.

  I got Starlet out of the car and walked her down the block a bit, not going so far that I couldn’t see Ellen’s house.

  As we walked back toward my car, the front door of the house next to Ellen’s opened. An older woman carrying a trash bag came out and ambled toward the curb.

  “Excuse me,” I called.

  She looked around in confusion then spotted me and waved. Starlet and I jogged up to her.

  “Hi,” I smiled. “Let me help you with that.” I took the bag that probably weighed twice as much as her and tossed it into the trash bin.

  “Thank you.” She smiled, but I could tell she was wondering just what the hell I was doing.

  “My name is Quinn,” I started. “Do you know the woman who lives next door to you? She’s Ellen, my boyfriend’s mother.”

  A spark lit in the woman’s eyes. “Oh, yes! Of course I know Ellen. That’s so s
weet that you’re dating Jeff.”

  I didn’t correct her. “Do you know when she might be home?”

  The woman’s eyes and mouth both went wide. “Oh, now… she won’t be home for days. She went on a trip to Pennsylvania. Or Connecticut. I don’t really know,, honey. She went to visit her sister.”

  My stomach fell all the way to my feet. “Do you know how to get in touch with her?”

  She shook her head. “No, honey, I’m sorry I don’t. Ellen doesn’t need anyone to take care of her house.” She chuckled slightly. “There are no plants or animals in there as far as I can tell.”

  I rammed my hand up in the back of my hair and clutched at my hair line. I was seriously about to lose my mind. This poor old woman did not need to be a witness to it.

  “Can I give you my number?” I asked. “Just in case she comes home early or something? Or whenever that is, as soon as you see her, will you please tell her to call me?”

  “Sure, honey. Sure thing.”

  I ran to my car for a scrap piece of paper and wrote down my number, as well as a quick note stating that the matter was extremely important, then handed the message over. I watched as the woman shuffled back into her house, then went back to my car, wrote the message a second time and slipped it under Ellen’s door. Better safe than sorry. I couldn’t let this whole situation rest on the shoulders of one older lady who may or may not remember to give Ellen my note.

  With nothing left to do, Starlet and I left, burning rubber all the way back to Chicago. Phil still hadn’t gotten in touch with me, and the only emails in my inbox were work related.

  There was one more person I could try to get in touch with, and it was a long shot. At that point, it was the only one I had.

  At home, I rushed into the kitchen and turned my laptop on. My fingers flew on the keys as I performed Google search after Google search. All I had were the smallest clues to go by. The town Seth grew up in. His full name.

  A few articles from high school popped up, mentioning Seth’s name as part of a winning basketball team. I scanned them, looking for more. The last person who could bring me any hope was Seth’s dad, but I didn’t even know the man’s name.