Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
After Pam left, Andi stayed still for a moment, her hands wrapped around her glass as the weight of the conversation settled over the table.
The hum of the restaurant pressed in again—silverware clinking, quiet laughter from a nearby booth—but it all felt distant, muffled beneath the gravity of what they’d just agreed to take on.
Duke leaned back in his chair across from her, exhaling slowly through his nose. “We need a plan.”
His voice was steady, but Andi caught the tension he couldn’t quite hide—the way he rolled his shoulders, working loose muscles that had tightened during Pam’s story. Duke didn’t rattle easily. When he did, Andi paid attention.
“We can’t just stumble around for fifty-eight hours hoping to find something,” he finished.
Fifty-eight hours.
The number landed hard. Andi let it echo in her mind, measuring it against everything they still didn’t know.
Fifty-eight hours until Los Angeles—until another city, another venue, another crowd expecting stories neatly wrapped and safely distant.
Mariella, she knew, was thrilled. She’d lived there for five years and talked about it like a second home.
Andi didn’t feel the same pull.
Matthew flipped his laptop open again, the blue glow lighting his face and sharpening his focus. “I’ll dig into Colin tonight. Background, social media, employment records. If he sneezed near Wi-Fi, I’ll find it.”
“I’ll research Gina’s firm,” Andi said, already reaching for the notepad in her purse. The familiar motion steadied her. “I just want to cover all our bases.”
Even as she spoke, her mind was moving ahead—sifting through possibilities, cataloging motives, already preparing to cross names off the list. If the case was connected to Gina’s work, she needed to know fast. And if it wasn’t, she wanted it eliminated cleanly.
False leads wasted time they didn’t have.
“Simmy and I will keep an eye on things here,” Ranger said. “Just in case this guy comes back.”
“I’d like to go with Andi to look at Gina’s apartment tomorrow morning,” Duke added.
Duke met her gaze for a brief second—an unspoken acknowledgment passing between them—before nodding.
“The rest of us can fulfill our contractual obligations,” Mariella said. “We have to get things ready for our next episode, as well as our next event.”
Andi nodded absently. Normally, their weekly episodes stayed safely in the past—old cases, closed files, tragedies already settled into history.
They saved real-time investigations for the bigger, monthly deep dives.
The tour had been meant as a breather from that intensity.
One case per city. Controlled. Contained.
This wasn’t that.
A beat of silent acceptance passed around the table, the kind that came when everyone understood the risks—and chose to move forward anyway.
Fifty-eight hours.
That was all they had before the road pulled them somewhere else.
Andi tightened her grip on her pen and forced herself to breathe.
She hoped it would be enough.
By the time the team drifted into the lobby together, it was nearly midnight. The long day pressed down on Andi’s shoulders, fatigue settling in the way it always did right before her brain refused to shut off.
She caught Duke’s expression as they walked.
He was quieter than usual, his focus angled inward, attention not fully on the conversation around them.
There was a contained tension in his posture—controlled, deliberate, the kind Andi had learned meant something was weighing on him.
Twice, she noticed him glance her way as if he meant to speak then stopped himself.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t something he wanted to say here. Not in front of everyone.
Andi slowed—and stopped.
The rest of the group halted with her as she spotted a familiar figure across the lobby.
Rupert stood beside the concierge desk like a scarecrow someone had stuffed into an Armani suit. His bow tie—usually as crisp as origami—tilted at a defeated angle, and the tendons in his neck twitched as he tapped his foot against the marble floor.
If Rupert had a breaking point, this was probably it.
He’d spent the evening trying to corral them as they ignored him—texting, knocking on doors, scrambling to keep sponsors happy—only to find them all missing when he needed them most. The Round Table podcasters weren’t an easy group to control, and Rupert loved control.
“There you are!” His voice ricocheted across the lobby, making Andi wince. “I’ve been looking all over for you people. Knocking on your doors. Sending text messages. Do you have any idea what time it is? Any concept of what tomorrow’s schedule looks like?”
“Rupert—” Andi began, already bracing herself.
But he was in motion, fingers flying as he unraveled laminated schedules from his leather portfolio like a magician pulling scarves from a hat.
“The afternoon question-and-answer at the Performing Arts Center opens its doors at one tomorrow,” he said.
“One! That gives you approximately eight hours of sleep, one hour for breakfast, three hours for prep, one hour for transport in weekend traffic, and exactly forty-five minutes for sound check.”
“I remember.” Andi crossed her arms, exhaustion thinning her patience.
He thrust a color-coded timeline into her hands. Bold letters read: Santa Clara—DO NOT DEVIATE.
Rupert had folders for each of them—Mariella already flipping hers open, Ranger accepting his with a grunt, Simmy taking hers with a polite smile.
His eye twitched. “And I saw that woman you were meeting with at dinner—the one who apparently wants your help or something. I overheard snippets of your conversation earlier.”
“And . . .” Andi prompted.
“At what point,” Rupert demanded, “does this tightly constructed schedule include time for—” He flailed his hands, grasping for the words. “For detective side quests?”
Mariella dropped into one of the lobby armchairs with an exaggerated sigh. “Rupert, a woman is missing.”
Rupert froze. Then blinked. Then blinked again.
“Missing?” His voice jumped half an octave.
“Well—that’s terrible—but not our concern.
Our concern is the”—he flipped a page—“two thousand fans who purchased tickets for tomorrow’s event, the evening news interview you’ve all conveniently forgotten, and the multi-tiered content schedule I have synced across three time zones! ”
Matthew walked past them without looking up from his laptop. “Going to bed. Ping me if he spirals.”
“Spirals?” Rupert sputtered. “I’ll tell you what’s spiraling—my blood pressure! Do you know what our insurance doesn’t cover?” He jabbed a finger at the group. “Acts of vigilantism!”
Simmy stepped forward, her presence calm and steady. “We’re not being vigilantes, Rupert. We’re helping someone look for her sister.”
Rupert made a noise like a stepped-on chihuahua. “Oh, yes—just helping. That’s what you said in Portland when that woman tried to hand you evidence about her neighbor and we ended up with a SWAT team!”
“That was a misunderstanding,” Ranger rumbled.
“A misunderstanding,” Rupert snapped, eyes bulging, “that cost me three bottles of Xanax and a gourmet apology basket!”
Andi rubbed her temples. They had this conversation far too often, and it was getting old. “Rupert, we’re not ignoring the schedule. We just—”
She stopped.
Duke’s posture—relaxed one second—shifted with the precision of a soldier hearing a tripwire snap. The easy lines of his body tightened. His head turned slightly, eyes sharpening, the air around him changing from casual to combat-ready.
“Duke?” Andi murmured.
He didn’t answer.
His gaze locked on something across the lobby.
Andi followed his line of sight—and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.