When She's Gone

by Palmer, Jane;

  Luke flashed his badge to the maître d’. A short conversation later, Ara was finally able to walk to the back of the restaurant where they’d been seated for dinner on the night of the kidnapping.

  “What happened during dinner?” Luke asked.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” Ara shrugged, touching the back of a chair. “Holly had met with an old friend who was a trustee at Princeton. She was trying to woo her in the hopes of giving Sam an edge next year when she starts applying for colleges.”

  “Did you notice anyone watching you? Acting strange?”

  Ara bit her lip, thinking back to that night. Nothing had felt out of place or tickled her intuition.

  She shook her head. “It was a regular dinner. Up until it was time to leave, anyway.” She caught Luke’s questioning gaze. “Holly asked me to step outside so she could have a moment with her friend. Despite what you may think of me, I don’t make a habit of leaving my employer unprotected. But I did as she asked.”

  “What about Sam?”

  “She was upset.” Ara’s voice picked up in pace. “She didn’t want to be at the dinner in the first place. Then Holly’s friend brought up the plane crash, and Sam became extremely withdrawn after that. When dinner was over, she ran off to the restroom. I think she wanted to have a moment to herself.”

  Ara followed the path Sam took that night, and Luke followed her.

  “Do you know if Sam ever made it to the bathroom?” Ara asked.

  “No, but my suspicion based on the timeline is that she did. Otherwise Holly would have missed the assault altogether.” Luke stepped in front of Ara, blocking the exit door with his body. He seemed to sense she needed to walk through the event, to understand it from every angle.

  Ara nodded, opening the bathroom door and standing in the threshold. “Okay, so Sam comes out of the bathroom, and he grabs her.”

  “Holly reported she caught them wrestling as they went out the door.”

  Luke grabbed Ara around the waist, twisting her so that her back was against his front. She could feel the firm muscles of his chest, the heat of his body pressed against her. He lifted her slightly so her feet were off the ground, then backed out the emergency exit into the alley.

  “Sam drops her purse during the struggle, or the kidnapper forces her to release it,” Ara said.

  “Then he shoves her into the back of the van.”

  Luke set her down gently, and she spun to face him. This close, she could smell the warm spice of his aftershave.

  She jerked her arm out of his grasp and backed away from him.

  Luke put his hands in his pockets and began walking toward the entrance of the alley. “They went this way in the van.”

  “Right.” Ara shook her head to clear her mind, to refocus herself, and followed him. “They took a left out of the alley.” She pointed down the road. “And then went that way, toward the highway.”

  She eyed the street up and down, but nothing seemed to stick out. She bounced on the balls of her feet. “One thing I never understood about the whole operation was how the kidnappers knew Sam would use the bathroom. Were they here, waiting, hoping that at some point she would pass by?”

  She blew out a breath. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible they did, but it seems risky to me. And why didn’t I ever spot them following us? We were so careful—I was so careful. I can’t believe I never noticed them, even if they were professionals.”

  “I had the same questions.”

  Luke’s low tone caught Ara’s attention. “What? What do you know?”

  He pulled out his cell phone from his suit pocket and scrolled to something before handing it over to her. “I pulled Sam’s phone records from the company. Thomas sent the results to me as we were driving over here.”

  Ara scrolled through the messages on the phone, and her heart started pounding with a mixture of dread and confusion. Blinking twice, she reread the final words.

  “Wrapping up dinner now,” she said aloud. “I’ll go to the bathroom within the next five minutes.”

  Luke nodded, answering her unasked question. “She had something to do with this.”

  Ara shook her head. No way. Not Sam. “That’s not possible. Why would she do that?”

  “You tell me. Why would she?” Luke expression was filled with both understanding and sympathy. He already knew why. He was just waiting for her to figure it out.

  Ara’s mind twisted. It only took a few moments before she caught up to his thinking. “Oh, God, she wanted to get back at Oliver.” She nearly spiked Luke’s phone to the ground before she caught herself. “What the hell was she thinking?”

  “She’s a seventeen-year-old. They don’t always have the best foresight.” Luke slid his phone out of her hands and tucked it back in his pocket. “She’s been through a lot of changes in the last two years. The loss of her father and brother, the remarriage of her mother, the new design of her family.”

  “The changes in her mother,” Ara added. “Holly’s distant with her, more and more every day.” She closed her eyes as she absolved the full impact of the evidence. “Sam’s rebellious and difficult and a smart-mouthed pain in the ass, but I never thought she would do something like this.”

  “She’s hurting. The kidnapping would give her a double strike. She could gain her mother’s attention and get back at Oliver by taking something he values dearly—his money.”

  “I’ve been torturing myself,” she whispered. “Thinking I let her down, that she was suffering because of my mistakes. And all this time, she’s been playing me for a fool.”

  Luke reached out and touched her arm. His palm was warm, the grip firm, and she could sense the strength behind it. “It wasn’t just you she played for a fool.”

  She looked up. Luke’s eyes were darker now. Had they always been that dark?

  Luke released her arm and stepped back, and Ara let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She wasn’t attracted to Luke. It was simply a side effect of the situation.

  Focusing on the exit of the alley, Ara forced herself back to the case. She replayed everything she knew, including the phone call Luke had played for her just an hour before.

  “Wait a minute.” She spun back toward Luke to find him watching her, that expressionless mask he wore firmly back in place. “The way Sam sounded on the phone . . . it didn’t seem fake to me. She’s smart, but she’s not much of an actress.”

  She bit her lip. “She’s in danger.”

  Luke nodded. “I believe she is, too. The ransom increase, the change in communication with the kidnappers. Something went wrong. Whatever Sam got herself into, whatever she had planned, didn’t go the way she thought it would. It may be why she’s trying to get a message across to you. Because she’s in real danger, and she didn’t know any other way to tell us.”

  “Whose number was she texting? Have you been able to trace it?”

  “It’s a burner phone. Already been shut off,” Luke said. “The only solid lead we have at the moment is the message she sent to you.”

  “Which means I have to figure out what the hell she’s trying to tell me.” Ara ran a hand through her hair. “This isn’t right. I don’t think the message has anything to do with the restaurant. It’s something else.”

  “What?”

  Ara sighed. “I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Gannon looked nervous.

  The massive man was sitting on the overstuffed couch, attempting to appear nonchalant, but his foot was jumping and his fingers kept flexing. Luke took the chair across from him and offered a disarming smile.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. Seems I’m burning the candle at both ends.”

  “No problem.” Gannon cleared his throat. “Although I already told the other agent . . .” He waved his hand around.

  “Thomas.”

  “Yeah, Thomas—everything I know. I haven’t thought of anything new.”

  “I just have some follow-up questi
ons. Nothing too major, but every detail helps.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s come to my attention you were guarding Sam in the afternoons. Is that true?”

  His eyes darted around the library before settling back on Luke. “Yeah, but only since school started. Before that she was mostly with Ara.”

  Luke nodded. “Right. Just to be clear, where was Sam going after school?”

  “The regular places. Her friends’ houses. The mall. Usual stuff.”

  “Did you accompany Sam to those places?”

  He swallowed hard. “Well, it depends. If Sam went to Sharon’s house, for example, I would hang out outside or downstairs while I waited for her. If she went somewhere public, like the mall, I would follow her from store to store. Keep an eye on her, you know?”

  “And you were watching Sam every afternoon?”

  Gannon straightened in his seat. “What are you implying?”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m asking if you were with Sam every afternoon after school.”

  “Of course. It’s my job.”

  Luke pulled out a photograph from the file folder resting on the table between them and turned it toward Gannon. “Then explain to me how you were at the horse track, placing bets, during the time you were supposed to be watching Sam?”

  He paused, his body still. “I took off one afternoon.”

  “Don’t.” Luke voice came out cold. “Don’t lie to me anymore. I have records, Gannon. You were placing bets several afternoons a week.”

  It’d taken his team time to find it, but once they went back in Gannon’s financials more than several months, they’d uncovered his gambling problem. Gannon had suddenly come into an influx of cash and was using that money to place his bets.

  “It’s time to come clean with me,” Luke said. “Now.”

  Gannon’s mouth opened and then shut. Color rose high on his cheeks. Luke waited him out, and finally the big man across from him let out a long, slow breath. “Sam was paying me to give her the afternoons off.”

  “She was paying you in cash.”

  Gannon nodded. “Yeah.”

  It confirmed what Luke had suspected. Sam couldn’t pay Grant because she was paying Gannon instead. Having the afternoons off, without any bodyguards, gave Sam the freedom to connect with someone and plan her own kidnapping without anyone knowing.

  “Listen,” Gannon sat closer to the edge of the couch. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think?”

  “It was innocent. Sam couldn’t stand being followed around all the time. She wasn’t used to it. Before her mom married Oliver, she could go where she pleased without a babysitter and she missed it. She begged me to help her. To let her have some time to be normal.” His voice lowered, and his gaze dropped to his hands. “And the truth is, I needed the extra cash.”

  “If this was all so innocent, then why didn’t you tell us when she was taken?”

  His head shot up. “Are you kidding me? If I’d told you the truth, I would’ve been fired.”

  “By not telling me the truth, you may have cost Sam her life,” Luke retorted. “Didn’t that occur to you?”

  Gannon’s foot started jumping again.

  “Where was Sam going during her afternoons off?” Luke asked.

  “I don’t know. I would drop her off at the mall and then pick her up.”

  “From what time to what time?”

  “Right after school until seven or so. She would meet me in the west parking lot, the one near the food court.”

  “Was she meeting with someone?”

  Gannon shrugged. “Maybe. Sometimes she had gone shopping because she would come back with bags of stuff. But other times she was empty-handed.”

  “You never asked her?”

  “Once. She laughed and told me to mind my own business.”

  Which meant yes. All this time, he and his team were spinning their wheels trying to figure out how the kidnapping had gone down, and with whom, and Gannon had been sitting on important information that could’ve helped them. The idiot wasn’t only going to lose his job. If they didn’t find Sam in time, Luke was going to charge him.

  But now was not the time to say that.

  “Did you ever see her with anyone?” he asked, careful to keep his tone professional.

  Gannon shook his head. “No, I promise. I would tell you if I had.”

  Luke leaned back in the chair. “Okay. Let’s go again. From the beginning.”

  Ara climbed out of the shower stall and wrapped the towel around her. The bathroom was foggy with steam, the mat soft under her bare feet. She’d convinced herself a long, hot shower would make her feel better. She was wrong.

  Sam’s face felt etched in her mind, a continuous movie she couldn’t stop. What was happening to her right now? She had to be terrified. More than terrified. It was an indescribable feeling, the helplessness that came with being at another person’s mercy. Ara knew. She’d experienced it firsthand.

  She gripped the countertop and cursed. This wasn’t helping. Sucking in a deep breath, she opened the door and padded into her bedroom. She rummaged around for clothes, pulling out a pair of jeans from the bottom drawer of her dresser. Opening the one with her shirts, she swore again.

  No long sleeves.

  Her gaze dropped over her shoulder to the back of her arms and the long, ragged scars there. They were thicker at the top and tapered down toward her elbows. Those scars were a physical reminder of her own personal nightmare. She never discussed the incident, kept it locked down behind a wall of armor. The scars were hidden away too. The clothes she wore protection against unwanted questions and unsolicited comments.

  And, if she was honest, she covered them for own benefit as well. Every time she looked at them, all she could hear was the echoing sound of gunshots. And the screams.

  Ara closed her eyes, but it only made things worse. Her stomach churned, and she feared for a moment she would be sick. She focused her gaze on a spot on the carpeting and forced herself to take a deep breath. Then another one.

  Sam’s kidnapping had rubbed all her old wounds raw. The ghosts of her past felt too close. How would she survive if Sam died? Her shoulders already carried the burden of other deaths, the guilt of being a survivor. She didn’t think she could add Sam to the load.

  Forget it. She would be wearing a jacket anyway. No one would know. And Sam wasn’t going to die.

  She dressed quickly and combed her hair, leaving it to curl loose and damp around her face. She considered going to the dining room but couldn’t bare it. Having Luke hovering over her with quiet expectation was too much. Yet neither did she want to be in her own room, the memories threatening to overtake her. She needed to clear her head. She needed to focus on Sam.

  Ara climbed the staircase to Sam’s room. She hesitated before touching the handle, suddenly feeling nervous about stepping into the private space. Sam was always so protective of her area.

  Not that it mattered now.

  Ara swung the door open and came face-to-face with the familiar surroundings. The large canopy bed, the silk walls, the expensive clothes littering the floor. Two days ago, Sam had been whirling through this room, a bundle of bad attitude and cockiness. It was never quiet when she was around. There were always friends, music, television.

  Now, the silence of the room was deafening.

  Ara walked across the plush carpeting, carefully stepping over items on the floor. Clothes, books, discarded food wrappers. Sam’s room was always a mess, but it had grown substantially worse since Holly had forbidden the housekeepers from cleaning it last month, after a huge blowout between Sam and her mother.

  I miss you, Ara.

  Sam’s words played over and over again in her head in a continuous loop. What did they mean? What had the girl been trying to tell her?

  Ara spun in a circle around the room, eyeing the objects, hoping for some sort of inspiration.

  Nothing.

  F
rustrated, she sat down on the unmade bed. The sheets and comforter were in a tangled heap, the scent of Sam’s shampoo wafting up from them. It brought tears to Ara’s eyes. She wiped them away with a trembling hand.

  She should be furious with Sam, and a part of her was. But overriding all of that was an overwhelming fear. It was clear, from the desperate tone of Sam’s voice, she was in way over her head. There was no question in Ara’s mind. Sam was in serious danger.

  Ara had been racking her brain throughout her shower, trying to figure out who Sam could have planned this with. Most of her friends were flighty teenagers, rich kids with God complexes. They wouldn’t have had the skills necessary to effectively plan and execute a kidnapping.

  No, it had to be someone else.

  Ara’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed, long and slow. She’d come into Sam’s room looking for inspiration. It seemed all she’d found was sadness and more questions.

  Her gaze caught sight of the painting above Sam’s desk. It was an oil abstract in bright, cheerful colors that matched the room’s overall decor. Another one of Holly’s art purchases, no doubt. Probably from the same gallery as the depressing painting she’d bought for Oliver the night of the kidnapping.

  Ara blinked. Her heart thudded in her chest.

  The gallery.

  Her own words flitted through her mind.

  Maybe one day you’ll miss having me as your shadow.

  She gasped and rose from the bed. Is that what Sam was referring to? The conversation they’d had at the gallery?

  Her lips tightened together. Her gut was screaming, and adrenaline coursed through her. She was onto something. She could feel it.

  But what? What was the message?

  She struggled to replay the conversation in her head. Ara had been telling her to be careful because Sam . . .

  Because Sam had been flirting with the man at the gallery.

  Nick.

  The name popped into her head along with a fresh wave of excitement. Was Nick the clue to this whole thing? Was he the person Sam was trying to tell Ara about?