by Maggie Wells
The man’s eyes finally softened. He took the photo from her hand. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Addy watched him disappear through swinging doors she assumed led to the kitchen, then fell into one of the chairs at the nearest table to wait for her dinner.
Cassie taking a day or two to return a call hadn’t alarmed Addy at first. Cassie was nineteen, adventurous and far more impulsive than Addy had ever been. After the first few missed calls and texts, Addy had expected a call from Cassie recounting a fun-filled last-minute trip to the mountains or someone’s vacation house in the Hamptons.
But that call had never come, and Cassie hadn’t answered any of Addy’s subsequent calls or texts. By the fourth day of silence, Addy had become concerned enough to reach out to Cassie’s roommate, Suri. Worry transformed to fear when Suri said Cassie had packed her things and moved out. Addy had resisted the impulse to call Cassie’s boss, not wanting to embarrass her sister at her first real job, but at that point, there was no other choice. Over the phone, Ms. Webb, the head of human resources and Cassie’s boss, informed Addy that Cassie had resigned from her internship with the company almost a week earlier with no notice.
Cassie had been over the moon to land the internship with Spectrum Industries, a leading computer chip manufacturer in the area. For Cassie, who was headed to MIT to study computer science after finishing this gap year between graduating high school and college, the internship was a dream come true. There was no way Cassie would have quit.
Something was very wrong, yet Addy felt in her bones that Cassie was out there somewhere. Alive.
She’d hoped to be heading back to New York, having found some clue to where Cassie was or at least having convinced the sheriff of the urgency of the situation, but she’d accomplished neither. Which meant she’d have to do the one thing she was hoping to avoid.
Addy pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. She tapped Jarod Cunningham’s name and hoped he wouldn’t answer.
Her boss picked up on the third ring.
“Addy? Didn’t expect to hear from you this evening. Is everything okay with the merger?”
That was Jarod. All business. She had no idea where Jarod currently was, since she’d called him on his cell phone, but it wasn’t hard to imagine him in his twenty-second-floor corner office even after eight on a Sunday night.
“Everything is fine with the merger, Jarod. It’s Cassie, my sister. You know she’s gone missing and I spent the weekend in Bentham looking for her. I’m still here, actually, and I’m going to need to stay a few more days.”
She’d avoided requesting time off initially by driving up on Friday after work. Asking the head of the corporate law practice at Covington and Baker for time off was always a fraught endeavor. Despite the firm marketing itself as a place where work-life balance was valued, when it came down to it Covington and Baker, just like every other big New York law firm, expected the balance to come down on the side of work, not life. She had just been assigned to one of the biggest mergers the firm had ever landed, a deal that would make her upcoming partnership vote a given as long as everything went perfectly.
And asking for time off just days before they were scheduled to meet the client wasn’t the way she’d envisioned starting things off.
It wasn’t what Jarod had envisioned, either.
“You can’t be serious,” Jarod bellowed. “Now is really not a good time to take a vacation. We need you here.”
“It’s not a vacation, Jarod. My sister is missing.” Addy let out an angry breath. She’d worked hard to prove her value to Jarod, and she resented the
insinuation that she was blowing off a major deal to sip mai tais on the beach.
Although Jarod brought in a lot of the merger business, as his right-hand woman, Addy did most of the work. It was a position she was content, if not happy, to be in. It wasn’t easy to be a Black woman in a large law firm. She was the only Black associate in the corporate practice, one of three Black female senior associates or partners in the whole of the two-hundred-person New York office.
“Of course, of course, and we all feel for you,” Jarod said, his voice lower now but still lacking all hint of sympathy. “But really, isn’t this a job for the police?”
She didn’t disagree, but the authorities didn’t seem to be taking the situation seriously. “The sheriff thinks Cassie will turn up on her own in a few days.” He hadn’t even wanted to take a missing person report. Luckily, seven years as a corporate attorney had given her a lot of experience convincing obstinate men to listen to her.
“If you can just wait two, maybe three weeks,” Jarod continued. “The Browning–Tuffs merger will be done by then. I bet your sister will have turned up by that point as well, and the two of you can take a nice long vacation.”
“My sister is the only family I have. I’m not just going to sit around doing nothing while she’s missing.” She didn’t try to hide the iciness in her tone.
“You wouldn’t be doing nothing, Addy. You’d be doing your job.”
She bit back her reflexive response. He was a talented attorney, but like a lot of powerful men, he was also a major jerk. For maybe the millionth time in the seven years since she’d started working at Covington and Baker, she considered quitting. And like each time before, she pushed the thought away, reminding herself how close she was to finally making partner and getting out from under Jarod’s thumb and how many medical bills were still left to pay from her father’s illness.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We don’t meet with the client until Thursday. I’m ready for the meeting, and I have my laptop with me, so I can do any last-minute changes from here.”
“I don’t like it,” Jarod said, but his hesitation gave her hope.
“Jarod, you know me. You know I can handle it. And I’ll be back no later than Thursday.”
Several silent seconds passed.
“Fine.” Jarod sighed loudly on the other end of the line. “But nothing can go wrong with this meeting, Addy. This deal is just as important for you as it is for me.” He disconnected from the call.
Jarod was not known for his subtlety, but he also wasn’t wrong. She knew the stakes.
She had three days to find Cassie.
The doors to the kitchen swung outward, and the man reappeared, a white plastic bag in one hand and Cassie’s picture in the other.
Addy slid her phone back into her purse and rose. The pity she saw in the man’s face as he drew nearer dashed the hope that had swelled in her chest.
“I showed your sister’s picture to everyone who’s still here, and no one recognized her. I’m sorry.”
Two solid days of showing Cassie’s picture everywhere she could think of in Bentham and nothing. No one remembered seeing her.
“Thanks, anyway.” She didn’t bother trying to muster a smile of thanks. She reached in her purse for her wallet.
“No charge,” he said, thrusting her food and Cassie’s picture at her. “You take care of yourself.”
Addy looked up into the man’s now compassion-filled eyes and wiped away the single tear she couldn’t stop from falling. “Thank you,” she croaked out before turning and fleeing the restaurant before the dam of tears broke.
Silver garlands hung from the streetlamps along with fluttering signs ordering the denizens of Bentham to have a happy holiday. The lamps themselves were spaced too far apart for the weak yellow light they cast off to beat back the dark December night. Five blocks west, cars coasted along one of Bentham’s main thoroughfares, but the street in front of Addy was clear and quiet, the surrounding businesses having long since closed for the night.
She’d left the metallic-blue Mustang she’d rented for the two-hour drive from Manhattan to Bentham in the hotel’s parking lot. It was easier to canvass the neighborhood on foot. All she had to show for her effort we
re sore feet.
A footstep sounded as she pocketed her phone. Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she squinted into the darkness but saw no one.
You’re just not used to so much quiet, she thought, walking on.
She’d lived in New York City since she was twelve but spent summers on her grandfather’s ranch in Texas. She’d loved the ranch almost as much as she loved the city, but New York wasn’t called the city that never slept for nothing. There was always something to do and see, and she was used to being surrounded by thousands of people, even though she’d been very much alone since Cassie moved to Bentham.
A scraping sound came from close behind her, followed by the unmistakable sound of fast-moving footsteps.
She turned, intending to move to the side, when a hand clamped around her ponytail, jerking her backward against a hard chest.
It took a moment for her brain to catch up with what was happening, and by the time it did, her assailant had taken his beefy hand from her hair and clamped it over her mouth.
Addy fought her rising panic. Like any savvy city girl, she’d taken self-defense classes, but it had been a while since she’d brushed up. She’d never thought she’d actually have to use any of those techniques.
She tried to pull away, but the man’s arm was like a vise around her neck.
“Don’t fight, and I won’t hurt you,” the man growled.
She didn’t believe that for a minute. She’d left the small gun she carried for protection locked in her car’s glove compartment, a decision she regretted now. Who’d have thought the streets of Bentham were more dangerous than Manhattan?
Well, she had no intention of going down without a fight, gun or no gun. She sent up a quick prayer and fisted her hands at the same time a yell came from somewhere in the night.
Shawn West stopped at an intersection not far from the offices of the company he’d been sent to investigate.
Half a block away, on the opposite side of the street, a Black woman strolled toward him.
She was too far away to see her clearly, but the tailored slacks, black wool peacoat and dark gray loafers marked her as a professional, probably on her way home from work. A feeling of familiarity washed over him, but he quickly dismissed it. Despite its proximity to Manhattan, he’d never been to or met anyone from Bentham before.
A figure clad in black, a man based on the figure’s height and size, peeled away from a darkened doorway as the woman approached the far street corner. The man grabbed the woman by the hair and wrapped his arm around her neck.
Shawn sprang from the Yukon.
He raced toward the man and woman, yelling as he did. “Hey!”
The man looked up, surprise on his face. The darkness, combined with the baseball cap the man wore, didn’t allow Shawn a good look at the man’s face. His arm stayed around the woman’s neck, but his grip loosed enough that the woman’s feet touched the ground again.
She took advantage of her assailant’s distraction. Bracing herself, she bent her right leg and drove her heel back into the man’s knee.
Her courage impressed him even as he put on a burst of speed, knowing that her fighting back had the potential to further aggravate her attacker. Shawn kept his eyes on the struggling pair.
The man’s arms fell from around her, and he let out a torrent of curses Shawn could hear clearly from a block away.
“Help!” the woman’s scream echoed off the empty buildings.
The man reached for the woman again.
“Hey!” Shawn yelled again. “Leave her alone!”
The man seemed to finally realize that Shawn wasn’t just going to mind his own business and
walk away.
He backed up, flinging the woman to the ground with another curse and fleeing.
Shawn slowed as he approached the woman. She lay on the pavement facing away from him on her side, coughing in an attempt to catch her breath. He scanned her body, looking for injuries. She didn’t appear to be seriously hurt, but he still couldn’t see her face.
Shawn glanced around the corner where the man had disappeared. The darkened doorways and parked vehicles along the street made for several good places to hide. He saw no one.
His heart pounding from exertion and adrenaline, Shawn turned back to the woman’s side.
The feeling of familiarity struck him again, and when she pushed up to a sitting position, he understood why.
“Addy?”
Now she turned her gorgeous brown eyes on him, shock shining in them.
Her shoulders relaxed when he stepped out of the circle of light that engulfed her. “Shawn? What…what are you doing here?”
He and Addy Williams had spent an incredible weekend together six months earlier at Ryan’s destination wedding. He’d tried to see her again after they’d returned to New York, but she hadn’t answered any of his calls.
“Are you okay?” Shawn asked, ignoring her question for one he deemed more important at the
moment.
He squatted next to her.
“Yes.” Addy’s voice cracked, and she stopped, clearing her throat before speaking again. “He didn’t hurt me.”
Fury that she could have been hurt rose in him, but he tamped it down. She looked shaken but otherwise okay.
“We should call the cops.” Shawn reached into the pocket of his leather jacket before remembering he’d left his phone in his car.
Addy pushed to her feet and pulled the sides of her coat closed around her. “No. No cops. I’m fine.”
He stood, wondering whether she’d hit her head in the fall. They had to report the assault. “We should call. That guy could attack someone else.”
She chewed her plump bottom lip, and a spark of attraction shot through him despite the frown that marked her pretty face.
Several seconds passed before she nodded in assent.
“I left my phone in the car,” Shawn said, tilting his head toward the Yukon idling at the stop sign, the driver’s door still wide-open.
He wanted to get her into the truck to wait, just in case her assailant came back.
“You can use mine,” she said, unlocking the phone with her thumb before handing it to him.
They walked together toward his car. Shawn assessed the woman beside him as he dialed.
Why didn’t Addy want to call the police? Why was she in Bentham?
And why didn’t she want to call the police?
Copyright © 2021 by Kia Dennis
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ISBN-13: 9780369709165
For the Defense
Copyright © 2021 by Margaret Ethridge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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