“Sure. Yeah, let me get dressed.” After he put on fresh clothes, he locked up all the doors, and we headed for Portland. “Sorry if he scared you. I’ll have another talk with him.”
“I don’t want to make this about me, but you might want to get a new bodyguard—a friendlier one, possibly.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about that,” he said, parking in front of my house. “This doesn’t have to ruin the whole day, does it?”
The weird scene had freaked me out, but being home gave me an odd sense of security and comfort. “No,” I said. “Have you ever explored Sellwood?”
He shook his head as we got out of the car. “I’m up for anything though.”
“Great, let me change, and then we’ll make Mocha Momma’s the first stop on the tour.” I pulled him by the shirt so that our bodies touched. “After we take another shower, of course.”
THE REST OF SUNDAY we had spent lazily walking through Sellwood, and I had forgotten the whole thing with Terrance by midday. Vince had an early meeting with Alma the next day, and I always had to wake up early, so he decided to sleep at his place, where I cooked dinner—I was using his fancy kitchen more than he ever did—and we watched the Blazers game before I headed home.
Monday came, and I was taking my first break at work when my phone went off, vibrating over and over. I checked it, reading thirteen voicemails, all from Alma. Why would Alma call me thirteen times? I listened to the first message: “Maci, it’s Alma. Call me back.” The second one played: “Maci, pick up.” The third: “Have you seen Vince? He’s late for our meeting.” The fourth: “Goddammit, Maci, pick up your fucking phone.” The rest were all in the same vein. She was really distressed about Vince missing one meeting.
I dialed her number.
“Maci?” Alma hissed. “Why the hell haven’t you picked up your phone?”
“Hi, Alma,” I said with emphasis. “I work just like you do. I can’t always pick up the phone.”
“Did you get my messages?” she asked. “Forget that. Vince is missing. He missed the meeting and still hasn’t shown up for work.”
“Maybe he slept in. People do that from time to time, Alma. It’s no big deal.”
“You don’t understand,” she snapped. “Vince has never missed a meeting. Vince is punctual, unlike you. I think something has happened.”
I sighed, frustrated with her, and pissed about the barb. “Have you tried Terrance?”
“Oh, what an excellent fucking idea.” She grumbled to herself before taking a deep inhale. “Yes, I’ve tried Terrance. He’s not picking up either, and none of Vince’s security seems to know where either of them is.”
I ground my teeth before answering. “You don’t think Vince is home?”
“No, I don’t, and his security”—she paused for emphasis and I could imagine her doing air quotes on the other end—“team is too lazy to go up and check because I guess Vince told them last night not to bother him.”
“I think he just wants to sleep, Alma. Or, if you’re so worried, maybe you should go and check for yourself.”
“Not possible. I can’t leave work. But you can.”
“I can? I’m running a business, too, Alma,” I snarled. God, she is a bitch. “Look, I gotta go. I hope you chill out.”
“Wait,” she shrieked in a panic. “Please.” There was an attempt at civility.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Please, will you go and check? I’m worried, and I’m not a person who worries.”
I sighed heavily. She was practically begging me, so I didn’t see how I could say no. Anyway, I could use the points to get on her good side, if she had one. Not for her, but for Vince and their friendship. I had to make the effort for him. “Fine,” I caved. “I’ll call you when I get there to tell you that you’re freaking out for no reason.”
“Thanks, Maci,” she said. A click came next.
I found Bridgett in the main kitchen. “Hey, I have to go to Vince’s real fast. I’ll be gone for an hour or so.”
“Everything all right?” she asked, preparing a cookie sheet.
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied, dodging her as she reached for a container of flour. “I guess he didn’t show up for a meeting, and Vince never misses meetings, so I thought I’d go see what’s up.”
She nodded. “All right, see you in an hour,” she said, her mind too focused to be drawn into the conversation. That was understandable, and I did that too from time to time, responding without hearing.
Hopping into Eddie, I drove across the city to the Envoy. The elevator ride was long and quiet. When I got to the penthouse, the door was closed, as usual. An alarm went off in my head when I tried the doorknob and it turned, unlocked.
The door creaked opened. “Vince?” I called. Only silence answered me. I crept through the game room and into his bedroom. His sheets were tousled, but there was no sign of him. The clothes he wore yesterday were on the floor, where he dropped them before climbing into bed, never collecting them after he woke. That wasn’t that strange, since he was untidy in the morning, cleaning up at night if he wasn’t too drained. I searched the rest of the house, finding no trace of him. His cell was gone, yet his keys were in their spot on the row of hooks in the kitchen, and I knew he’d never leave his place without them.
I called the security guards that worked out of Terrance’s condo on the floor below. Only two were on duty, and only one of them bothered to come up. “So he left his keys?” the tall, skinny man named Roy said, dressed in a fine suit that made him look the part of a secret service agent. “That is a little odd.”
“It’s also odd that no one can seem to reach him,” I said, a little paranoid now.
“All I can say is that Terrance told us this morning not to disturb Mr. Forte because he had a long night last night. We told Ms. Perez that when she inquired earlier this morning.” With his hands on his hips, he shrugged, his head cocked to the side. “Forgetting his keys isn’t that big a deal anyhow, seeing as we have a spare down below, and he could call us to let him in if he was locked out. He’s probably just out on a run.”
“Terrance told you, not Vince?” That sounded off. “Does Terrance normally do that?”
“Relay what Mr. Forte says?” he asked for clarification. I nodded. “Not often, but every once in a while. Most of the time Mr. Forte will tell everyone with a group message using his walkie.” He scooped it up off the kitchen counter.
“I’ve never seen Vince leave his door unlocked when he goes somewhere, have you?”
“Now that detail is the most peculiar,” he admitted. “Mr. Forte has yet to leave his door unlocked or open that I know about.”
“And you really think he’s just out for a run?”
“That’d be my best bet, yeah,” he replied, laying down the walkie.
“But Alma—” I stumbled over her name. “Ms. Perez has been trying to contact Vince ever since early this morning. Vince likes to work out, but for three hours?”
He hung his head in thought. “Yeah, I guess that is a pretty long time. I’ll talk it over with Mark downstairs and see what he thinks.”
“All right.” I shrugged off what he said. Talk it over? What the hell did that mean? I got out my phone after he left, typing in nine-one-one, pausing on the send key. Was I overreacting? The security guys weren’t worried, so why was I? Erasing the numbers, I called Vince’s gyms instead and asked if anyone had seen him. No one had. A call to Imaginuity’s lab revealed that no one there had seen him either. He was just gone.
Panic started to settle in.
I dialed Alma. “Is he there?” she asked as way of greeting.
“No,” I answered flatly. “And the security guys just think he’s out for a run.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said honestly. “His front door was unlocked and his keys are here.”
“Those lazy bastards,” she snapped, but not at me. “I told Vince they had
little value.” I understood “they” to mean his security team. “I’ll get the police looking. Thanks, Maci.” She was talking fast, almost too fast for me to catch that last bit.
“You’re—” Too late, she’d hung up. “Welcome,” I finished for no one. God, she was crazy.
Where else could I check? Alma was going to have the police take over. I thought about waiting for them, but I also didn’t want to hang around idly. I went back to his bedroom to see if I’d overlooked something. Normal. It was all normal . . . until I noticed a cluster of black fuzzies where Vince slept. I pinched one between my fingers and brought it up to my eyes for a closer inspection. It looked like the material the bondage cuffs had on the inside.
The Oregon City house flashed in my mind, sparking an idea. Maybe he went back out there for his phone, and left in a hurry. That sounded too convenient in my head, too easy. He hadn’t taken his keys either, or had he? I regarded the keychain and saw that the car starter wasn’t missing, but he did have spares—Terrance kept one on him at all times. Then something caught my eye. The starter to the EverGo was gone. But why would he take the EverGo? After a minor debate with myself, I texted Alma, deciding to check it out. I also sent Bridgett a text to let her know my change of plans.
Climbing into Eddie, I headed down to Oregon City. I had a bad feeling crawling around in my brain, and the farther south I drove, the worse it got. I pulled up into the driveway, parking in front of the garages. Vince’s EverGo wasn’t there, and last time he didn’t pull into one of the garages, which may have meant they were full with other toys. It looked like I made the long trip for nothing.
Before I got out, I checked my phone to see if Alma had replied, but it was dead. “Dammit.” I tossed it into the passenger seat. Without a charger, it was useless. Before killing the engine, I glanced at the clock, reading 11:23. The number made my skin crawl with foreboding.
Inspecting the windows on the sides of the first and third garages, I discovered they were placed too high to check inside, except maybe with a good jump, which I didn’t have. Luckily, the door to the house was a different story. I turned the handle and the door swung quietly open. Sidling through the house, it appeared normal, everything exactly how we’d left it—
Until I heard glass shatter and angry screams. “Because I love you, Vince. And you—you love me too, can’t you see that? We belong together.”
I rounded the corner and spotted Vince and Terrance in the middle of the great room. Gasping at all the lit candles, I stared at the romantic scene, and found I had no voice to ask what the hell was going on.
Terrance shot a look my way. “It’s her who has you all confused.” He turned back to Vince. “We understand each other, Vince. She’s just some pretty tits, shaking her ass in your face, that’s all. She doesn’t know you like I do. She doesn’t care the way I care.”
“Terrance, you’re way out of line,” Vince yelled.
“Am I? I’m just trying to wake you up to reality.” Terrance got down on one knee and grabbed Vince’s hand. “There’s no denying that we share a special bond, Vince. We worked out together, ate meals together, watched movies together, played video games. And then along comes Maci Goodwin.” He emphasized my name with a cruel glint in his eye. “Everything changed after that. Now the only time we eat together is at her pathetic brunch house. Well, I’m sick of it. Sick of her. Sick of pretending.”
“Pretending?” Vince said with confusion, withdrawing his hand from Terrance’s strong grip.
“Pretending that you love her. It’s me you want, Vince. I know it. I know it with all my heart.” Hearing the big man spill his guts sounded so off to me that all I could do was gawk with an open mouth, utterly stunned. “We belong together. If you just gave us a chance.” Terrance jumped to his feet and wrapped Vince up in an embrace, which Vince fought to break, struggling, but the monstrous bodyguard held him long enough to plant a kiss on Vince’s lips. Vince shook his head and finally slipped free.
“Terrance! What the hell, man! You’ve gone fucking insane or something. You’re a good guy—”
“We—” Terrance cut in.
“But I don’t love you, Terrance . . . I love Maci.”
“MACI! SHE’S NOTHING,” he roared, his face darkening. “I’m what you want, what you need. Didn’t you feel that spark when we kissed?”
“Terrance, you need to leave, now,” Vince said sternly.
“I’m not leaving until I get you to open your eyes.” Terrance’s big brown eyes pleaded with Vince.
“Terrance,” I spoke up, knowing that I might enrage the beast and incur his wrath. His eyes met mine with fury blazing in them. “You have to see that Vince doesn’t like men like that.”
“You don’t know what he likes,” he spat.
“My eyes are open,” Vince took over. “I don’t love you and I never will. This is absurd. We’re friends! We’re just friends . . .” The words sounded juvenile, as if stolen from some teen movie.
The big man’s face grew the deepest shade of red I’d ever seen, then a furious purple. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Why—why are you saying that?”
“Because it’s true.”
Terrance shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”
“You need to leave, before this spins out of control.”
I could see the big man breaking down, rage boiling, about to spill over, about to lash out in some terrible way. He clenched his massive hands, his knuckles white and cracked. He stared me down. “This is all your fault,” he croaked, pointing sharply at my chest. “I will make you suffer.”
The threat pushed Vince over the edge. The punch happened so unexpectedly and with so much force that it knocked Terrance to the floor.
“Get out,” Vince growled. “Get out. NOW!”
Terrance got to his feet, his left eye darkening, which would soon bloom into an ugly shade of purple. “Fine.” He swept across the room toward the kitchen, but stopped and spun around when he reached the dining table. “I hope you both burn in hell!” His forearm swiped half a dozen candles to the floor, any semblance of romance stripped away, the air now toxic. He charged out of the house, fuming.
“The rug,” I shouted, as the flames licked the area rug underneath the table. It only took a second for the fabric to catch on fire.
“Hurry,” Vince said, his voice spiking with alarm. We both tried to stamp out the flames to little effect. It was almost as if the rug was soaked in oil the way it burned, the flames spreading faster than I would’ve thought, but then I noticed the broken glass and fresh wine stains, probably from Terrance gathering up his courage to confront Vince.
“Where’s the fire extinguisher?” I asked in panic.
“The garage,” he replied.
I shook my head. The fire was spreading too fast to rush to the garage and back before it clung to something else. “Too far. We have to drag it outside.”
Vince flipped the table out of the way, not worried about breaking it; saving the house was by far the more important of the two. “Grab the other end,” he said, pointing. We pulled together, running for the double doors and the courtyard beyond. I dropped my corner as soon as we breached the threshold. Vince tugged it a bit farther, down the steps, and let it burn next to the fountain. He dashed off, presumably to grab the extinguisher.
I gaped at the orange blaze, captivated. Mount Hood towered in the background, a thorn in the sky. The angle of the fire made it look like the mountain was burning.
Vince sprinted up a breath later, extinguisher in his hands, blowing out the flames. The rug was ruined, spotted with black-rimmed holes and dozens of singe marks. “I never liked that rug anyway,” he joked.
I laughed, adrenaline feeding my nerves, my heart pounding. “What the hell just happened?”
“I don’t really know,” Vince answered, his voice strained. “One minute I get a call from Terrance telling me about an emergency out here, the next I find him on his knees professing his love
for me . . . and then I’m punching him . . . and the fire . . .” He was shaking his head.
“Are you all right?” I asked a minute later, after both of us regained our composure.
He nodded, wrapping his arm around me. “You?”
“A little shaken up, but I’m okay.”
He laughed, staring at the destroyed rug. “That was some crazy shit.”
“What are you going to do about Terrance?”
“He didn’t mean to hurt us, he was just worked up . . . still, I think I should call the police.”
“Is your phone dead? I called you about a hundred times, and Alma—she actually tried to be polite to me today, so that shows you how frantic she was.”
“Did she really? I told you she’d come around.” His smile broadened. “But yeah, I forgot to charge it last night. I’ll go use the landline.” He disappeared inside the house.
Alone again, I found myself trembling. Just breathe. Breathe. I took a deep breath and held. I recalled my earlier ponderings from two days ago, reflecting on how Terrance looked at Vince, thinking it was a look of brotherly love, when in reality it was romantic infatuation. I wondered if Vince knew about it, but tossed that absurd notion out the window. By his look of surprise when Terrance declared his love for him, he obviously hadn’t the slightest idea.
“I think we need a vacation,” Vince said, startling me from behind.
“I don’t remember the last time I went on vacation.” There was a quiver in my voice that I tried to hide. “It feels like years ago.” It had been years, a road trip to California with Danielle after we graduated from U of O.
“A trip will do us some good after today . . . Where would you like to go?”
I considered that for a moment. “Anywhere?”
“You name the place and we’ll go,” he said. “I need a break.”
I just felt like going home and curling up with him. But a trip also sounded nice. Someplace warm and tropical—and secluded. I didn’t want to see people. “Hawaii,” I finally said.
“Hawaii it is.” He smiled, and then kissed me with all the love in the world.
Chasing The O Page 26
