Justin
No more high-maintenance redheads.
Brax leaned forward and steepled his hands. “Go on, I’m dying to hear this story.”
Brax answered for her. “On the contrary. Alexa showed up with Nolan, and not only has she moved in with him officially, there’s a ring on her finger.
Plus her parents happened to be at the awards dinner, and her mom got into a food fight with a gang of Lucas Collins fans.
It was the most entertaining night I’ve had in years. ”
“For a moment there, I thought you said Alexa and Nolan got married.”
“I’m as surprised as you are, but can you imagine any other man putting up with her?”
“No, I can’t. What happened to that blond guy?”
“Chase? The gay one?”
“Wait, he’s gay?”
“Of course he’s gay. I thought you knew that.”
“Nobody ever tells me anything.”
“Well, I’m telling you that Chase couldn’t take his eyes off Lucas Collins last night, and I suspect the feeling was mutual. But enough about them. What happened with—”
Jessie chose that moment to slide an egg white omelette in front of Justin. She’d hummed softly to herself as she whipped up the eggs, soufflé-style, before stuffing them with asparagus and prosciutto, and he’d barely been able to tear his gaze away from her.
Now Brax’s eyes widened. “Who’s the new redhead?”
Ari elbowed him in the side. “Show some tact?”
“He split from Melanie less than a week ago. This is a record, even for Justin.”
“Are you on speaker?” Ari asked. “Tell me you’re not on speaker.”
He was, and Jessie’s cheeks had turned the colour of the cupcake frosting she’d just made.
So delightfully fucking pink. Since she’d been thrust into the mess with Amie right alongside Justin, he figured she had a right to know what was going on.
He just hadn’t banked on Brax acting like an asshole, although he should have done because Brax was always an asshole.
“Jessalyn is having man trouble, so she’s staying with me until she gets back on her feet.”
Brax and Ari looked at each other, then Brax put his head in his hands.
“Hi, Jessalyn,” Ari called. “This is Brax. He got married in Vegas with twenty-four hours’ notice to piss off his wife’s fiancé.”
She paused halfway to the refrigerator. “Uh…”
Ari gave an encouraging smile. “We’re all dysfunctional here.”
“Jessie isn’t dysfunctional,” Justin told her. “She just hit a rough patch. Can we get back to the Amie problem now?”
“Amie is your personal assistant?”
He nodded. “She’s worked at Norquist Construction for seven years, and not once has she skipped work without a good reason. The cops said she probably ran off with a guy she used to date.”
“Why would they think that?”
“Because we were trying to track down people she knew, and his boss said he left town two days before Amie disappeared.”
Justin gave Ari a brief summary of events so far—Amie’s failure to show up for work after her day of PTO, their visit to her apartment with Sophy, the conversation with Brett’s former boss, and the reluctance of the police to do their jobs.
“If they went somewhere together, why wouldn’t they leave at the same time?” Ari asked.
“Exactly my point. And also they broke up, and her roommate seemed to think it was permanent this time. Do you have any contacts out here who might be able to track their phones? I’m not even sure if that’s legal or not.”
“We won’t speak about that part, okay? Give me the numbers.”
The weight Justin had been carrying around for the past two days lightened. A competent grown-up had come to help. Yes, technically Justin was an adult, and thanks to his position as CEO of a successful company, way too many people assumed he always knew the answers.
He didn’t.
“Yesterday, both phones were ringing,” Justin said after he’d read out the numbers. “But this morning, Amie’s is going straight to voicemail.”
As if the battery had run out. Why hadn’t she charged her phone? When he heard her voice, his heart had leapt, then plummeted just as fast when he realised it was only the recorded greeting.
“If the phone is turned off, we can’t be as accurate with the location, but we can get a rough idea of where it’s been. If the two phones were moving together, for example. We’d be able to see that.”
“How long will it take?”
“Give me a half hour.”
While he waited for Ari’s call, Justin took the dog out for a run.
He needed to stay busy, to do some physical activity in order to keep his head in check.
In the aftermath of Ruby’s death, he’d spent a lot of time exercising before collapsing into a restless sleep every night, which had the unfortunate side effect of leaving him shredded.
He’d often wondered if the Blackstone House affair would have received quite so much attention if Ruby hadn’t been a blonde goddess, if Levi hadn’t been a weird genius, and if he himself hadn’t been snapped using the bottom of his shirt to wipe his brow with his abs on full display.
Sure, he’d heard stories about reporters acting underhanded, but he’d never expected a photographer to be hiding in a damn bush as he arrived back at the motel he’d taken refuge in.
Anyhow, he liked to sweat out his frustrations, but today, it backfired because Ari called before he was halfway home.
“Yeah?” He sucked in air as Shiro sniffed around a tree. “Sorry. I mean, thanks for getting back so quickly.”
“Did I interrupt something?”
“The dog’s morning constitutional. Did you find the phone?”
“Brett appears to be moving around in Salt Lake City, Utah. And as I said before, we can’t be so accurate with Amie’s device, but it doesn’t seem as if it ever left your office. It’s either inside or close by.”
What? “Why would she leave her phone behind?”
“Maybe she forgot it at work? Left it on her desk?”
“I don’t remember seeing it, but I guess it’s possible. I’ll head over there and take a look.”
“Let me know how it goes?”
“I will. This is getting really fucking weird.”
There was a long pause. “From what I’ve heard, I agree with you.”
Amie hadn’t left her phone in the office.
It wasn’t sitting on her desk, or lurking in one of her drawers, or lying around in the kitchen.
Justin felt down the sides of the couches in the break area while Jessie checked the women’s bathroom, just in case.
Nobody else had seen the phone either—Justin messaged several colleagues to check—and Amie’s glittery pink case wasn’t easy to overlook.
Where else could it be? He couldn’t think.
He couldn’t focus. Jessie made coffee while he replayed his recent conversations with Amie over and over in his head, but there’d been no hint that she wanted to leave. None.
“Are you sure your friend is right about the phone being here?” Jessie asked.
“I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
“What if she dropped it on the way to her car?”
“Someone would have found it by now. And if it got stolen, wouldn’t it have moved along with the thief?”
“Could it have slid under something? Another vehicle? A bush?”
They were running out of possibilities. “We should go look.”
“This might sound crazy, but do you have an object that smells of her?”
Okay, that did sound crazy. Justin raised an eyebrow. Well, half an eyebrow.
“When Shiro was younger, I took him to training classes because Ridge didn’t want an unruly dog in the house.
But Ridge also didn’t like me walking him far, so…
” Jessie rolled her eyes, which pleased Justin because she was finally starting to come out of her shell.
“So I learned a little about scentwork. Like, teaching dogs to search for things with their noses. It tires them out mentally, plus I taught Shiro to find Ridge’s keys because he was always losing them, and…
Never mind. If you have something that smells of Amie—a hat, a scarf—I can have Shiro help us hunt for the phone. ”
A dog helping? Justin resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but what did they have to lose at this point? Amie had a cushion on her chair, so Justin picked it up by the corner and carried it outside while Jessie fetched Shiro from the car.
“Sniff,” she said, and the dog sniffed.
So far, so good.
“Seek,” she said, and Shiro dragged her across the parking lot.
Not so good.
Saturday morning, and the place was deserted.
Justin believed in having a sensible work/life balance, so nobody worked on the weekends unless there was an urgent project that needed completing.
He got on his hands and knees and peered under a truck that hadn’t moved in a few days because its regular driver was on vacation, but there was nothing except a stray candy wrapper underneath.
He dropped it into the trash can by the door.
When he turned, the dog was sitting in front of the overgrown privet hedge that surrounded the temporary parking area, his tail wagging, and Jessie was bent over, rummaging in the foliage. Damn, that ass.
Totally inappropriate, douchebag.
“Did you find anything?” Justin called.
“Shiro indicated here. I can’t see a phone, though. But maybe…”
She straightened, and Justin saw something new in her eyes. Fear.
“What? What is it?”
“I think it’s a purse.”
A purse? A chill ran through Justin because he could see Amie dropping her phone by accident, but her whole purse?
No way.