“She did not run away.” She would have made contact and there had never been any attempts. She’d never been seen anywhere and Emery knew from the detective who once worked the case that her social security number was never used again.
“That is your theory, but there is not one scrap of evidence that suggests otherwise.”
“And there’s not one bit that supports your theory of her running off with someone.” Emery knew all about Tiffany’s crushes and the boy she kissed the week before she disappeared. They’d talked about everything, and nothing pointed to her running off without a word. Not one thing.
Her father sighed as he picked up the platter of partially cut chicken and brought it over to the table. “She was a troubled girl. I know you don’t want to believe that, but Gavin and I talked about her issues. He was concerned about her growing behavioral issues and wanted her to go to boarding school. Louise fought it, but it would have happened.”
“That’s not true.”
The platter hit the table with a thud. “You’ve recreated this image of her to make her some sort of a saint, but that is not reality.”
Emery refused to move out of his way as she pivoted to take her seat. Sure, it was childish, but food was the last thing on her mind at the moment. “She didn’t deserve to die.”
He turned away from her. Glanced at her as he walked back to the counter and picked up the side dishes. “I didn’t say she did.”
She stepped in front of him again because he needed to stop moving around and just talk to her. “Did Uncle Gavin believe she ran away? Because he never said that. He fought for her, looked for her, until the end.”
Her father reached around her and set the platters down before taking his seat at the head of the table. “Gavin was obsessed just as you’re obsessed. His came from guilt. I’m not sure where yours comes from, but the obsession must stop.”
“That’s not fair.” The word grated across her nerves. Others had used it. Tyler, the friend who grew up with them. The same boy who had professed undying love for Tiffany and kissed her right before she vanished. The detective. Caroline never said it, no one at work did, but Emery wondered if they thought it, too.
“I buried my best friend and I will not bury my only child.” Her dad pulled out the chair with a bit too much strength and the legs left the floor. He lowered it to the hardwood again without scraping against the floor. “End of story.”
She knew he actually believed that would stop the conversation. Because he said so. But this was not his classroom and she was no longer twelve and afraid of his temper. “What do you think is going to happen to me?”
“It’s already happened. It’s starting to look as if this is not a passing interest. That you’re never going to move on.” He leaned back in his chair as if daring her to deny it. “You live in the past. Even now you’re bringing this subject up over dinner.”
“We need to talk about her. We need to have answers.” She did. Down to her soul. The guilt. The not knowing. Waking up every day thinking Tiffany could be one of those poor women chained to a bed somewhere in some sick bastard’s basement, unable to get out.
The horrible possibilities ate at Emery. Stole her sense of security. Some days it warped her until she feared she was losing her mind. The desperate searching for an age-progressed version of Tiffany’s face in the files at work never ended. Without finding her—without knowing the truth—it never would.
“We need to eat dinner.” He picked up the serving dish with the chicken and slid a portion to his plate.
She kept her fingers locked on the back of the chair. “Dad.”
“I am done with this topic.” He didn’t even look up as he snapped his napkin open and laid it across his lap. “Sit.”
The quiet thundered in her ears, broken only by the sound of the clinking of his silverware. She glanced around at the familiar space, the all-white kitchen and crisp navy drapes outlining the door to the back patio. The house should bring her comfort, but being here only made her long to get out again.
And she could. She wasn’t a kid anymore. The hold her dad had on her snapped a long time ago.
She pushed back from the chair. “No thanks.”
He put down his fork. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not hungry.” Her stomach had turned over and flipped inside out. The idea of food made her want to hurl.
“Don’t be juvenile.” He gestured toward her usual chair. “Sit down and eat.”
“That’s the great thing about being almost twenty-five, Dad. I decide when I eat.”
All emotion left his face. He treated her to a blank stare. “I expect better of you.”
“Yeah, well. Chalk it up as one more disappointment.” She had a hard time catching her breath. She wanted to scream and cry and swear. None of those would move him and that would only make her emotions explode even more. “That’s what I do, right?”
“I am not going to engage in this ridiculous debate.” With that he picked up his fork and started eating carrots.
She just couldn’t think of anything related to finding Tiffany as ridiculous. “Enjoy your dinner.”
CHAPTER 9
Wren waited two whole days before going back to the coffee shop. Not exactly a cause for congratulations. He spent the time doing what he needed to do—work—and gathering all the intel he could on Tiffany. The latter took him down a hole that he had some difficulty crawling out of.
He hated unanswered questions. He didn’t have to guess what it felt like to live with uncertainty because he knew all too well. Not many people could claim an expertise in living with the open-ended loss of someone close. It was a pretty shitty club to join and the membership was purely involuntary and unending. The fact Emery shared that secret knowledge and dealt with that level of unrelenting pain just sucked.
That’s why he was in the coffee shop, standing at the back of the line while his driver waited a few doors down. He tried to blend in, which he knew was not his forte. He was not a head-down, stare-at-his-shoes type, but he worked those unused skills now. The last time he made eye contact in this particular store he wound up admitting at least part of his name to a stranger. The same stranger he hoped to see here again today, but if she stuck to her usual schedule she wouldn’t come in for another twenty minutes.
As soon as he finished the thought he felt a presence looming next to him. His head shot up and he looked right into Emery’s big brown eyes. He beat back the need to blink. She’d snuck up on him, which was not something that happened . . . ever.
She held out her hand. “Here.”
He looked at the white cup with the name Brian scrawled on the side and tried to figure out the chances she planned on poisoning him. “What is it?”
She shook it at him. “Black coffee. You seem like a nothing-fancy, no-sugar kind of guy.”
Right on the first try. Not bad for a woman he’d met all of three times.
He took the coffee and followed her to the small bistro table in the back. Took the seat by the wall. She didn’t seem nervous or upset, and he had no idea what to make of that.
“I feel like you’re trying to tell me something,” he said.
“If I want to tell you something, I will.” She looked two seconds away from rolling her eyes.
“Fair enough.”
She also looked a bit too sexy for his peace of mind in her khaki-colored pantsuit with a pink shirt. Something about the shade lit up her face. The bounce in her walk, the hair around her shoulders, the smirk when she got the drop on him and handed over the coffee. She appealed to him in a raw want-to-abandon-his-responsibilities-and-fuck-her kind of way, which was just about the last thing he needed.
She sat there and toyed with her cup. Spun it around between her palms as she watched him. “Why are you here?”
He thought about coming up with an excuse but abandoned the idea. Emery didn’t strike him as the type to buy nonsense talk. “I realized that the last few times
we met I may have acted a little—”
“Arrogant. Annoying. Dickish.”
She seemed to have those descriptions ready to go. He preferred to use one of his own. “Bossy.”
“Wow, that wasn’t even in my top ten, even though it fits.” She shifted her chair to the right when someone pushed past her on the way to the bathroom. “I like my list better.”
He didn’t doubt that. “I’m not normally one who goes back and rethinks his actions.”
“Are you one who apologizes?”
She sounded serious, so he gave her an honest answer. “Hardly.”
“I figured.” She leaned in with her elbows on the table. “So, tell me the truth. Did the senator make you come find me?”
“It’s interesting you think anyone can make me do anything.” No one had ever accused him of that before.
“I thought maybe the two of you were . . .” She waved a hand in the air.
He had no clue what that meant. “Yes?”
“You know.”
“I actually don’t. Finish the sentence.” He pushed his cup to the side and leaned on his edge of the table. The move put them within easier whispering distance, though neither of them had lowered their voices all that much. He just sensed it was coming.
Then there was the part where he could smell her. Not sugary or like vanilla. This was something more sultry. A light touch of a floral scent, but with a bit of musk. It filled his head.
“I thought you might be together,” Emery said.
He wasn’t clear how he felt about the comment. It seemed to suggest he lacked fidelity, or the senator did. “I’m not sure her husband would approve of that.”
“Hey, I don’t care what consenting adults do in their private time. I’m not judging.” This time she held up both hands in what looked like some sort of disingenuous mock surrender. “In fact, if you were together in that way she might have some sway over you and get you to actually answer one of my questions.”
He was intrigued by how her mind worked. She made connections and looked for angles. Good skills, but this time her instincts or whatever was guiding her had misfired. He liked and respected the senator. He met her in the first place through her equally successful law partner husband.
Wren had received work from both of them and continued to cultivate both contacts. He did not fool around with married women and he couldn’t really see the senator cheating. “No.”
Another bathroom goer bumped into the side of her chair. This time she picked it up and moved it until she sat almost next to him, only a few feet away. “You’re going to need to be more specific with that answer. We seem to have several comments flying around. What are you answering?”
“No, I’m not with the senator in any way except having worked with her.” He moved both of their coffee cups out of spilling range. “And no, she did not send me.”
“You just happened to be in this coffee shop again today.”
“I came to find you.” Which seemed obvious to him since he already told her that.
“But not apologize.”
Emery could keep trying, but he had no intention of saying he was sorry. He wasn’t. “I fear we’re spinning in circles.”
She stared at him. “The way you talk is endlessly fascinating. Annoying as hell, but also fascinating.”
He had no idea how to respond to that, so he skipped ahead to his point. If he didn’t finish this soon, his driver and probably Garrett would come storming in to find him. “I wanted to make sure you understood the facts.”
“Which are?”
“I didn’t know your cousin. I certainly didn’t kidnap her and I don’t know who did. I wasn’t anywhere near the DC area when she was taken.”
The main points, all of which pointed to him as being innocent, which he was. He lived back and forth between Michigan and Massachusetts at the time. He’d never even heard Tiffany’s name until Emery gave it to him.
She tapped her fingernails against the tabletop. “Why was your name in Gavin Younger’s file?”
The clicking echoed in his brain. “You mean your uncle. This is a family matter for you.”
“I see you’ve been busy digging around in my personal business. How charming.”
He couldn’t exactly deny it, so he didn’t try. “I have no idea why he had my name but, and here’s my actual reason for talking to you today, I intend to find out.”
“How?” She kept drumming. Click. Click. Click.
“It’s what I do.”
“I’m still unclear on the category of what it is you do as an actual job.”
He glanced at her fingers, hoping she’d get the point and stop. Somehow the sound rose above the murmur of conversation in the packed shop. He didn’t even know how that was possible. “I fix things.”
“Ah, yes. You’re all about the fixing.” She sat back in her seat and put her hand on the back of his chair, right by his shoulder. “But answer one question.”
The sudden closeness had his mind racing to other topics. “Possibly.”
Then she shifted again and now their legs touched. She just kept moving. It was as if energy kept pinging around inside of her, pushing her to stay in motion. It was driving him crazy. Not annoyed crazy. No, not that at all. A different kind of crazy . . . the kind that came with bad decision making.
“You’re hysterical,” she said.
“I can assure you no one has ever said that before.”
Her hair brushed against her cheek as she tucked one leg under the other. “Why should I believe anything you say about Tiffany?”
“You don’t have any reason to.” It took all of his control not to put a hand on her leg and hold her there. He could sit still for hours while concentrating on a task. She couldn’t seem to go without fidgeting for ten seconds.
She frowned at him, which seemed to be becoming a habit. “Yeah, I know. That was my point.”
“Yet, I think you do know, at least on some level, that I’m telling the truth.”
“You keep forgetting I don’t know you at all.” Her head tilted and her hair slid over her shoulder.
For a second he couldn’t remember what they were talking about then it came winging back to him. “We need to make a deal.”
“That sounds like a terrible thing for me to do.”
“You don’t even know the terms.” That mouth and those full lips. Jesus, he couldn’t see anything else.
His usual self-control abandoned him. She sat about a foot away from him now, maybe less, and he’d gone into an uncharacteristic tailspin. Instead of following along and holding his ground, his mind wandered. Something about her threw off his concentration. He didn’t like the strange power she seemed to have over him, especially after such a short time.
Without thinking he took a sip of the coffee. The bitter liquid hit the back of his throat, reviving him. This is why he loved caffeine.
He tried to regain the upper hand, to the extent he ever possessed it. “I will track down the answer as to why my name was in the file and provide proof that I was not in the area when—”
“Proof I can corroborate. I’m not taking your word for it.”
He had never met a woman who made his eye twitch and had him thinking about kissing at the same time. “Speaking of charming.”
“Would you just believe anything I said?”
“Maybe.” He hated to admit that answer wasn’t a lie.
She clearly didn’t agree because she snorted. “Oh, please.”
A strange haze fell over him. It blocked the noise of the café and the constant shuffling of people around them. “In return for the intel, plus the corroboration, you will stop asking around about me. That’s a dangerous game.”
“You mean for you.”
“No, Emery, for you. You are not the only person who wants to know more about me. If you give any indication that you actually do, you could walk into trouble.”
She made a face. “This secrecy thing is a tad overdram
atic, don’t you think?”
That sobered him. He had the bodyguards to prove it. “No.”
“It is when you combine it with the black suit . . .” She studied his jacket. “Do you own, like, twenty of them?”
He fought the urge to follow her gaze and look down. “We’re discussing my fashion choices?”
She shrugged. “Just making an observation, but yes. Fine. I’ll agree to your deal, but I won’t stop investigating you until I’m satisfied you’re telling the truth and not involved.”
It didn’t take a master negotiator to see the trap. This is what he did for a living. He knew how to bait and what to give up. He didn’t see that she was budging on much at all. “How are those good terms for me? I don’t win anything.”
“You poor thing.”
Her sarcasm nearly knocked him over. “You clearly don’t belong to the ‘a male ego is a fragile thing’ way of thinking.”
“I don’t care if it is or not. You’ll have to get someone else to stroke yours.”
The word vibrated through him. She knew what she was doing. She had to. “Interesting.”
She reached for her cup and held it in a tight grip in front of her. “Frankly, I have a feeling you’ll be fine if you don’t get your way just this once.”
He couldn’t argue with that. She made a good case, and really, she’d poked at his curiosity until he couldn’t stop thinking about her or her cousin. And he should leave it at that. Make the deal, go away and check in later. But should was a strange word . . .
He reached into his pocket and slipped out the small card he’d placed there in the car ride over. “Here.”
She looked at the block lettering then turned it over. Then did it again. “What’s this?”
“My phone number.”
She flipped the card around. “It’s actually just a number. No name.”
“Yes.”
“Weird.” She dropped it on the table as if it were on fire. “Look, I get that you’re hot and all. Not to me, of course, but how someone who never actually heard you speak could find you to be—”
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