Chapter 8
Cassie
Found something you should see. Meet me at the office as soon as you can.
Quinn's text flashes across my screen. Finally, a lead to follow in the case, or at least, I hope.
I run a brush through my hair and throw it into a ponytail. Last night was the best night I've had in a while. Lincoln and I talked for hours, and it felt like before when I could share anything with him. He’s as charming as ever and working his way closer to my heart despite the barriers I keep putting up.
The door to the garage is the only thing that separates our homes. I pause a moment before I knock.
Take a deep breath, Cassie.
I still feel jittery and nervous after our dinner. Was he feeling that way, too? I could have sworn he was, but it was hard to tell. Lincoln has a calm, cool exterior down to a science.
The secrets between us are too much. He’s made it clear there are things he hasn’t told me and doesn't intend to, at least not yet.
What if there were no secrets? The tiny voice in my heart wants to know the answer. I’m not answering that just yet. I have to trust him as my partner before anything else. What am I thinking? Us being anything else is a ridiculous notion.
Knocking firmly, I step back, grab the keys, and put them in my pocket. Anita needs to be found; Meredith is counting on us for that. The door opens, and Lincoln stands there with disheveled hair in a T-shirt and jeans. My eyes drop momentarily, but I force them right back up.
“Quinn found something. She needs us at the office, that is, if you’re not busy with any secret jobs.” My tone is a bit sharper than intended. His secret jobs bother me. Is it because he might be doing something he shouldn’t, or is it because I’m worried there might be someone else, and he doesn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me? I can’t say for sure.
“No secret jobs today. Criminals sleep in late; haven’t you heard?” He winks. “Let me get ready, and I’ll meet you in the car.”
I fight back a laugh. Lincoln gets out of way too many tight situations with his humor. “I’ll be waiting then.”
In the time it takes Lincoln to get ready, I’ve tidied the car and already started it. He slides in, the scent of his cologne filling the small space. He is the opposite of the man who answered the door ten minutes ago. He's changed into a fresh black T-shirt that fits a little looser than the last one. He’s traded the faded jeans for a new pair, and his hair is combed back and perfectly in place with gel.
“You getting spiffy for someone specific?” I throw a teasing note into my question, though it sends a little stab through my heart. What if he is getting fancy for someone? It's no business of mine. Lincoln is free to see whoever he wants, just like I am.
“Can’t a man dress up for himself?” He raises an eyebrow, daring me to challenge him.
I laugh. How many times have Quinn and I said that same thing?
“Fair enough,” I concede. “Quinn said she found something big. I wonder if it’s the lead we need to break the Anita case open.”
“We only started it a few days ago. You can't expect us to find her already,” Lincoln says, shaking his head. “One of your dad's first lessons when I became a PI was that patience is half of the game.”
“I know, I know. Just once, it would be fun to solve something crazy fast. If there were ever a case that would be good for it, it would be this one. If the Thorntons were impressed…”
Lincoln frowns. “Stop worrying about Meredith Thornton, and let’s focus on Anita.”
His strange behavior about Anita’s case sets me on edge. I must be missing something. I stop the car in front of the office, and we head in to find Quinn sitting at the computer, a concentrated crease in her brow.
She looks up and waves us over as soon as we step inside. The office is warm and full of the morning sun’s rays. I don’t usually get to the office this early, but it’s nice. Clearly, Quinn has a different work ethic.
“There you both are. You’ll never guess what I found. Meredith sent over a bag delayed from Anita’s flight, and there was a drive in it! It was encrypted, and I’ve been working on it all morning.” Her fingers continue to type furiously as if she hasn’t quite given up on whatever she’s working on.
“How did Meredith get the airport to give her the bag?” Lincoln frowns.
Quinn shakes her head.
“I didn’t ask.” She taps her mouse on the screen and motions for us to come closer. “I’ve only recovered a couple of things—Anita’s calendar and a few notes on the car dealership down on Fifth Street.”
“Maybe she bought a car there or rented one.” I walk around her chair, peering closer. Finding Anita is starting to become a personal challenge as well as a professional one. How did she just disappear? Did she want to disappear, or did someone make her disappear?
“Cassie, get this—she was coming to talk to you.” Quinn’s words send chills down my back.
“I’m sorry, what?”
She has to be wrong—but she’s not. Sure enough, my name is in the calendar block on the day she arrived at the airport. It’s written with squiggly letters; the ones used if someone uses a tablet or phone but still writes in their notes with a mechanical pen.
Talk with Cassie at S&L Investigations.
I suck in a sharp breath. How is it that I’m connected to the missing reporter?
“What does it mean?” I look between Lincoln and Quinn, hoping for some sort of answer.
“It means that she went missing because of you.” Lincoln grins and makes a spooky face.
“Stop it. It does not!” I shake my head. “It does mean she wanted to talk to us about something. Why did she write Cassie in particular?”
Lincoln’s expression goes back to seriousness as he peers closely at the calendar.
“You’re right. If she had wanted to talk to our private investigator practice as a general thing, she would have just put S&L. Instead, she put ‘talk to Cassie.’”
My heart tightens. Maybe I’m more connected to Anita than I thought. The idea haunts me. There’s not a lot of explanations as to why Anita would seek me out personally. I’m new to being back at the investigative office. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“Let’s start with checking out the car dealer.” Lincoln stops my rambling thoughts with a smile. “Meanwhile, Quinn, see what else you can get off that drive, all right?”
Quinn nods. “Sure thing, boss.”
“See? She knows I’m the boss.” Lincoln laughs.
“Don’t take things so literally.” Quinn shakes her head with an amused smile.
“As your boss, I have another missing person we should be looking into. I haven’t been completely honest with you.” Lincoln’s expression turns a tad more serious, though the mischievous sparkle in his eyes, which seems to be making a comeback, still lingers.
“Figures.” I cross my arms. He should see it’s no big deal to me that he’s been keeping secrets, but on the inside, I’m dying to find out what he’s about to say and hoping he’s coming clean about something for once.
“Someone else was seen talking with Anita around the time she went missing.” Lincoln looks away from us for a split second, his eyes falling to the floor. That’s strange. Lincoln is never nervous about anything—especially a case.
“Who’s that?” I prompt. There’s no reason for him to hide information about Anita’s case.
“Nathan Thornton. He’s also missing.”
It’s like he’s dropped a bomb in the office. Quinn and I exchange glances. Something’s really off about all of this. Nathan Thornton, a man with the same last name as the woman who hired us to find Anita, spoke to Anita and is also missing. That’s not good at all.
Link
I’m a liar. At this point, that should be my job description. Maybe I could get it printed on a badge and wear it on my chest so everyone can see my true nature out in the open.
“Okay, start at the beginning.” Quinn pushes away from the desk in her chair. She crosses her arms over her chest, staring at me as if she's the judge and jury at my trial. “How do you know Nathan Thornton? How do you know he met with Anita? How do you know he's missing? I have so many questions.”
“I’m sure you do. I can't reveal my source yet, but I have it on good authority that he is somehow involved in all of this. I've checked everything I can regarding his whereabouts these past few days, but there’s nothing. That's how I know he's missing. If we can find Nathan Thornton, maybe we'll find Anita too.”
Cassie shakes her head but doesn’t say a thing. Guilt punches my gut. I made her to look at me that way. Lorraine and Phineas come to mind. If someone like him could come clean to the woman he loves, maybe there would be hope for me and Cassie. Would she still stand by me if she knew all my dirty secrets? The answer to that question is not something I’m ready to face yet.
“You’re asking us to expand our missing person search to two people without explanation?” Cassie finally asks. Her shoulders are tense, and a little crease above her brows shows how upset she is. Of course, she’s bottling it up. Due to my past actions, she’s given up on pressing me for the truth but still trying to pull information out of me.
“Yes, that is what I’m asking. The information is good, I promise.”
Every word feels like a stab to my insides. Lying to Cassie and Quinn is not what I signed up for, and I don’t want to do it. But I think Nathan Thornton has a lot to do with what’s going on. It’s too much of a coincidence that Meredith is looking for Anita while Phineas and I are searching for Nathan. If the two are connected, maybe Cassie and Quinn can stumble on it themselves without me giving them all the answers.
Risking Phineas’s anger this early in the game is not a good idea, and including them at all is already a huge risk.
“I’m asking for a little trust, even if it doesn’t make sense right now.”
Trust? I don’t deserve any of their trust. I don’t even deserve their friendship. My eyes linger on Cassie just a moment too long. There could be so much more between us, but there’s just too much holding us back.
“All right.” Cassie shrugs an unreadable mask over her features. “Let’s get started at the car lot. When I get back later, Quinn and I will discuss Nathan and how we can start looking for him.”
“Just like that?” I narrow my eyes. That felt a little too easy. Cassie is stubborn, if not persistent. It’s not like her to just give in.
“You’re asking for some trust, aren’t you? That’s what I’m doing, trusting that you have our best interest at heart.”
I’m not. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a mistake and spilling everything. Of course, I have their best interest at heart. No matter what, I would protect Quinn and Cassie. If I felt they were in danger, I would give myself up in a minute and let Phineas do his worst.
I scoop the keys off the counter where Cassie left them and lead the way toward the door. “I have a friend at that car lot. We can talk to him.”
Cassie mumbles something to Quinn, then follows me out. I’m hyper-vigilant, watching what she does, how she reacts, what her expression is when she’s thinking. I want to know what she’s thinking about my information on Nathan Thornton. She said it was fine, that she’s trusting me, but it’s so out of character, and it’s thrown me for a loop.
“Why do you keep staring?” she asks as we turn down the block toward town.
“No reason. Just trying to figure out why you gave in so easily on adding Nathan to the investigation.” Honesty can be the best policy in some situations. Ironic, I know.
“Maybe I trust you?”
I laugh. “Not a chance.” I shake my head. She’s playing her cards close to her chest. I can respect that .
“You don’t know everything.” She rolls her eyes, and her lips turn into one of her annoyed smirks. At least she’s cute while trying to pull one over on me.
“Do you remember your dad's intervention? It was about a year before you left to start your career.”
She giggles. “No one could forget that. You kind of deserved it. In fact, you were acting a lot like you’re acting now.”
I shake my head. Robbie was convinced I was mixed up with some bad people. He wouldn’t have been wrong if he had staged his intervention about ten years earlier. However, I was just planning his surprise birthday party. It wasn’t much of a surprise after he sat down with eight different people we knew from town to have an intervention and told me they were there for me. I had to tell him about the surprise party to stop the intervention.
“No surprise interventions, okay, Cassie?”
“No promises.” Cassie holds her hands up in a resigned position with a little laugh. “Sometimes I wish things could be as simple as they were back then, you know?”
“I know. Me too.” If only she knew that things weren’t so simple back then. She just didn’t know all the details. But I’m not about to break it to her, and I hope I’ll never have to.