“They sound great,” Shawn said.
The chatter in the diner ebbed and flowed around them, mixing with the clink of silverware against porcelain cups and plates.
“They were. And I loved growing up in Texas. A year after Cassie was born, Mom was diagnosed with cancer. She was gone a few months later. My dad and grandparents were devastated. My grandmother passed three months after my mother from a broken heart.”
Shawn reached across the table for her hand. “I’m so sorry, Addy.”
“It was a long time ago. When my grandfather passed a year later, Dad sold the ranch and moved us back to New York so we’d be near his family.”
“Making you half city girl, half country girl and totally fascinating,” Shawn said, lacing his fingers through hers and looking into her eyes.
She held his gaze, her heart doing a fluttery stutter. An image of holding Shawn’s hand as they strolled the Mall in Central Park or took in the view from Belvedere Castle ran through her mind.
Dangerous thoughts for a woman who had sworn off relationships.
She pulled her hand from his and cleared her throat. “Maybe we should talk about our next steps for finding Cassie.”
Shawn frowned but leaned back against the booth and went with the change in subject. “Do you have any ideas?”
“We need to talk to Suri, but she won’t answer my calls. We need to figure out how we’re going to get her to speak to us,” Addy said.
“We’ll have to track her down. I’ll get someone at West started on that now. What’s Suri’s last name?”
“Bedingfield,” Addy said just as something else popped into her mind. “Hey, why were you so interested in Ben working on the loading docks?”
An expression she couldn’t name passed over his face, but before he could answer her, his phone rang.
He looked at the screen. “It’s my brother. What’s up, Ry?”
Addy turned toward the window and tried not to eavesdrop on Shawn’s conversation, an impossible task given there were only a few feet between them.
The familiarity in Shawn’s tone coupled with the undercurrent of irritation and a hint of idolization marked the sibling interaction. She wondered if that was what people heard when she and Cassie spoke. And whether she would ever speak to her sister again.
Shawn kept the call brief, but he asked Ryan to locate contact information for Suri Bedingfield.
“Your brother?”
“Yeah.” Shawn shifted to put his phone back in his pocket. “He’s been a little overbearing.”
“About the case you’re really in town for?” Addy said with open curiosity.
Shawn made sure no one was near enough to hear them before answering. They were hours after the typical breakfast rush and ahead of the lunch crush. The only other people in the diner were a pair of teenaged girls occupying a table at the other side of the diner. Becky had seated the customers she did have well away from each other. “Yeah. We have a time crunch, and getting a favorable outcome for our client would mean a big boost for our business.”
“Yet you offered to help me.”
A look she couldn’t name crossed Shawn’s face for a fleeting moment before disappearing.
The smile that replaced the look was cocky. “I can handle both. I’m that good.”
Addy rolled her eyes. She read the cockiness for what it was—a deflection to keep her from asking more questions—but let it go for now.
Becky stopped at their table, plates balanced on her arm. She set Addy’s pancakes and eggs in front of her and slid a second plate with toast to a stop. She turned to the waitress that stood behind her and took the plate with a small mountain of bacon and a small bowl from the girl’s hands and placed them on the table in front of Addy and Shawn.
“Anything else I can get you, folks?”
Addy had already forked a generously sized bite of pancake in her mouth, so Shawn answered.
“We’re good, thanks,” he said, humor dancing in his eyes as he watched her eat.
Becky moved away from the table.
“Excuse me,” Shawn called out. “Do you know who Suri Bedingfield’s new job is with?”
Becky’s nose scrunched in thought. “She didn’t say a company name or anything in her message, but I just assumed she’d found a better-paying waitressing job over there in Garwin. They got fancier restaurants than we do here, which means bigger tips.”
Addy hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She finished her food quickly, then rested against the back of the booth.
“Feeling better?” Shawn asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Actually, I am.” She looked at his empty bowl. “How can a man your size survive on a wheatgrass muffin and a bowl of fruit?”
“It was a whole-wheat muffin, and egg whites and spinach are packed with protein. Eating healthy gives me energy.”
Addy shook her head, smiling. “I’d rather have bacon.” She bit into the piece of bacon in her hand.
Shawn’s eyes locked on Addy’s. “Well, it doesn’t seem to be hurting you any.”
A sexy grin turned his lips upward. Her entire body flushed and her heart beat triple time. “I don’t recall you being so big a flirt.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m stepping up my game since my meager charms didn’t hold your attention the last time.”
Embarrassment brought heat to her cheeks. “I owe you an apology for ignoring your calls after Ryan’s wedding. That weekend was a mistake.” She flinched at the hurt expression that crossed his face. “I didn’t mean—”
Shawn held up a hand, stopping her. “No, I shouldn’t have called you out like that. It was one weekend.”
“It was one incredible weekend.” She pushed her empty plate aside. “It’s just, I don’t date.”
Now both his eyebrows shot up, forming an upside down V over his nose. “Never?”
She shrugged, then rolled her shoulders to relieve some of the tension there. “I have a few friends—just friends,” she emphasized, though she wasn’t sure why she was explaining all this to him, “I call if I need an escort to a work function or something like that, but since my divorce...” She let her voice trail off.
“I can’t imagine what kind of man would let you go.” He shifted his gaze to the ceiling as if in thought. “I’m envisioning the world’s biggest half-wit. No, half-wit is too many wits. A quarter wit?” He looked at her with a smile tickling his lips. “Or maybe a two-tenths wit.”
Addy laughed, as she knew he’d intended.
“No, no. I’m going to go with he’s a one-fifth wit,” Shawn declared with exaggerated finality.
“Two-tenths is the same as one-fifth,” she said with a smile.
“I’ve never been good at math.” Shawn grinned. “But he’s definitely short on wits.”
“You won’t hear me contradicting you, although I’m more than a little biased as I’m the one who got dumped. Or cheated on, to be precise.” Addy swallowed the last drops of her now-cold coffee, all traces of humor gone from her voice. “Although to hear Phillip tell it, I drove him to cheat.”
Shawn shook his head. “Not possible. You know that, Addy.”
She nodded. “I do, but that doesn’t mean hearing it from the man you’d planned to spend your life with doesn’t affect you.”
The muscle on the side of Shawn’s jaw jumped and his eyes darkened, but he watched her silently.
For some inexplicable reason, she wanted to tell him about her ex. “Phillip never liked the long hours I worked. I guess when it came down to it, he couldn’t stand being the man waiting for his wife to come home.”
Shawn shook his head again. “That’s a cop-out. I’d consider myself the luckiest man on earth to find myself waiting for you to come home to me.”
The surrounding air crackled with unspoken desire.
“Is he why you never returned my calls after our night together?”
“It wasn’t about you. You were my first and only one-night stand. I’ve sworn off relationships.”
Whatever response Shawn might have given was forestalled by their waitress’s reappearance.
She slapped their check on the table, oblivious to the sexual tension. “Can I get you anything else?”
Addy pushed herself out of the booth. “Excuse me for a minute. I want to, uh, wash my hands.”
She wove through the tables to the dimly lit hallway separating the kitchen from the dining area at the rear of the diner and into the ladies’ room. She braced her palms against the sink’s edge, taking a minute to collect herself after the charged moment with Shawn. She had no idea why she’d told him about her failed marriage, except that some innate instinct told her she could—should—trust him.
Cassie’s disappearance had thrown her off-center. She was blowing off work and trusting a man she barely knew. That wasn’t exactly true. She knew some parts of him very well.
Addy looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Focus on finding Cassie. And she would, although she didn’t think she’d be able to stop her feelings for Shawn deepening with each passing moment they spent together.
She washed her hands and exited the restroom, nearly colliding with a man standing outside the ladies’ room door.
A four-inch scar ran along the side of the man’s face, combining with sunken eyes and angular cheekbones to give him a menacing, skeletal look.
A shiver ran down Addy’s spine. She averted her gaze. “Excuse me.” She put as much room as possible between them as she attempted to move past the man.
“You ought to take those fancy manners and go back to New York City,” Scarface hissed. “You won’t find what you’re looking for here.”
A wave of fear rolled through her, but she straightened to her full five-foot-eight height and met the man’s ugly glare. “Back off.”
“It’s you who better back off if you know what’s good for you.” Scarface took a threatening step forward, and Addy moved two steps back.
“Who are you?”
“Wouldn’t want you to disappear, too, now, would we?”
Fear turned to fury in an instant. Too. Did that mean Scarface knew where Cassie was?
The man took another step forward, filling the space between them.
In the next instant, Scarface spun away from Addy, his back slamming against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. Shawn put his large frame between Addy and the man.
“Was that a threat against the lady?” Shawn wasn’t touching the other man now, but his hands were fisted in front of him, his body taut and ready to strike.
“Not a threat. Just an observation.” A scowl twisted the man’s face, making it even more grotesque.
“Well, since you seem to be in a sharing mood, why don’t you tell us what you know about Cassie Williams’s disappearance,” Shawn said.
“I ain’t telling you nothing.” The man pushed off the wall, ready to strike.
“What’s going on back here? Half my customers are standing in this hallway.” Becky stopped at the mouth of the corridor. Her eyes fell on the man, and her expression turned to one of disdain. “Teddy Arbury. Why am I not surprised? I warned you about coming in here with your trouble.” Becky’s fist landed on her hip.
“I ain’t the one making trouble, Becky. I’m just trying to use the facilities.”
Becky’s expression screamed disbelief. “Well, go on, then. Get out of here,” she said, her chin jutting toward the men’s room.
Teddy shot Shawn a dark look. Teddy slid by, purposely walking closer to Addy than was necessary. Shawn growled a warning as Teddy pushed through the door into the men’s room.
“Are you okay?” Shawn asked. He put his arm around Addy’s shoulders, pulling her close and leading her toward the diner’s doors.
“I’m fine. He didn’t touch me. Just caught me off guard,” Addy said, soaking in the warmth from his body. “We need to pay.”
“I settled the bill already.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I ate twice as much as you did.”
The corners of Shawn’s mouth turned up ever so slightly. “More like four times as much.”
She reached into her purse for her wallet, but he waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s hurry. I want to see where Teddy goes when he leaves.”
Chapter Seven
Addy went over the encounter with Teddy in her head as she and Shawn crossed the street to the public surface lot where he’d parked the Yukon. They’d just closed the doors when Teddy lumbered out the diner doors. He turned in the opposite direction from the parking lot where they sat and headed down the sidewalk.
Shawn put the car in gear and followed.
Teddy made a left at the corner and mounted a black motorcycle. He tore off down the street.
“Make sure your seat belt is fastened tight. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to follow him without him realizing it. Yukons aren’t exactly commonplace around here.”
She’d seen lots of SUVs, but more of the soccer mom variety, with lots of space for kids, dogs and gear. There were very few of the massive SUVs of the kind Shawn drove.
He wasn’t wrong about Teddy catching on to the tail. They’d gone about five blocks when the motorcycle made a sudden hard left, crossing over two lanes of traffic and nearly sideswiping a parked car. Shawn couldn’t follow.
“Damn.” Shawn hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.
“We have to go back and find him. I think he knows where Cassie is.”
“He’ll be long gone before I can turn around in this traffic.”
Shawn continued to drive with the flow of traffic. She felt like crying out in frustration. Her phone rang from inside her purse.
Addy accepted the call without looking at the screen, expecting to hear Jarod’s irate twang. At last check he’d sent her half a dozen emails, mostly to remind her of things she’d already taken care of.
Instead, the voice on the other end of the line was much more familiar and welcome.
“Addy?” Cassie’s tear-streaked voice came from the other end of the phone.
Addy’s heart raced at the sound of Cassie’s thready voice. “Cassie? Oh my God, Cassie, are you okay?”
Shawn cut across a lane of traffic, drawing an angry honk from a red sedan, and threw the car into Park at the side of the road. He motioned for Addy to put the call on speaker.
She pressed the microphone icon on her screen and held the phone between her and Shawn. Static crackled from the phone.
“My shoulder...okay, though, I think.” The line dropped in and out as Cassie spoke.
“Cassie, where are you?” Addy’s heart pounded loudly in her ears. The only response was the sound of static. “Are you there? Cassie?”
“Here... Woods...” Cassie’s voice came in a ragged burst between static. It almost sounded as if she were running as she spoke.
Shawn leaned in close and spoke into the phone. “Cassie, my name is Shawn West. I’m helping your sister find you. Can you see anything around you?”
“Not sure...”
The line went silent, Cassie’s voice and the static both gone, followed by the telltale beeping that showed the call had dropped.
“Cassie!” Addy cried, the panic in her voice sucking the air from the interior of the car.
She pressed the speaker icon and brought the phone to her ear, hoping that the move might somehow bring her sister back.
Shawn took the phone from her hand, navigating to the recent calls list and hitting redial.
They listened to it ring for thirty seconds before the line went dead again without being picked up or rolling over to voice mail.
&
nbsp; Addy gripped Shawn’s arm. “We need to go to the sheriff, right now. Maybe he can trace the call or something.”
Shawn nodded, putting the Yukon in gear and getting them to the sheriff’s office fifteen minutes later. She and Shawn showed the deputy at the desk their IDs and explained that they didn’t have an appointment with the sheriff but that they needed to see him. The deputy hesitated but lifted the receiver of the phone on his desk after several seconds and punched four buttons.
He spoke too softly for Addy to hear what he said through the Plexiglas and over the chatter coming from the people sitting behind her in the waiting area.
The aftershocks of emotion from Cassie’s call still vibrated through her.
If Shawn was as impatient to speak with the sheriff, he was better at hiding it. Still, his shoulders were taut. And the assessing sweep of his eyes over the lobby and the officers behind the Plexiglas screen screamed that he was on guard.
The deputy put down the phone, pushing a sign-in sheet and pen through the slit in the glass. They signed in, and less than a minute later the locks on the door to their right clicked and another uniformed deputy waved them through.
Sheriff Donovan looked up from the file he was reading as they entered.
“Ms. Williams. Mr. West. To what do I owe this pleasure?” Donovan’s tone conveyed the opposite of his words; he found no pleasure in their reappearance in his office.
Since she was in no way happy to be in his office and the sheriff’s cavalier attitude toward Cassie’s disappearance may have put her sister in danger, Addy didn’t hesitate to engage.
“I just got a call from Cassie. She’s being held by someone, possibly in a wooded area.” She’d marched from the door to his desk while she spoke, stopping on the visitor’s side of the desk and staring down at the sheriff, her hands balled into fists at her side.
“Hold on a minute.” Sheriff Donovan pushed back from the desk, raising his hands. “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about this call?”
Shawn stepped up next to her but seemed to understand that this was a fight she wanted to wage by herself. He kept quiet. “I don’t want to have a seat, and I just told you about the call. What are you going to do to find out where my sister is being held?”
Missing at Christmas Page 6
