“She’s called multiple times and has helped work through a list of Nell’s friends and acquaintances.”
Stella let out a shaky sigh.
“There’s not much more we can do right now. We’ve worked every angle we have. The file is open, but there is only so much that can be done without additional leads.”
Stella closed her eyes. “Okay. I understand.”
“If you think of anything else, you call me.”
She finished her shift on autopilot, handed the keys off to the afternoon manager, walked out the back door at two-thirty-five, and sat in her car in the diner lot. Stella knew that she needed help from someone who operated outside the system.
She needed Steel Protection.
Chapter
Nine
Blaze wasat his desk in the office with a stripped-down forty-five on a shop towel in front of him. Valeria was on the phone at the front desk with a client. Adrian was asleep in the playpen with his teddy bear. Axel was at his bank of monitors with his headphones on. Hunter had been in and out twice in the last hour and was somewhere upstairs now. Ryder was out on client check ins by himself today.
Blaze ran the brush through the barrel. He pulled a patch through. He held the barrel up to the light and checked the bore and set it down on the towel.
The front door of Steel Protection opened.
Her scent hit him before he got his head up. Maple syrup and brown sugar. His wolf surged inside him, snapping at the backs of his eyes.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
Stella Keenan stood in the entryway in her work clothes, like she’d just come from the diner. Her face was drawn, and her jawwas tense. She looked stressed. He could smell it coming off her in waves. His wolf whined at the scent of it, knowing his mate was in trouble. He had to do something right now to fix whatever it was.
Valeria ended her phone call and looked up at Stella. “Stella Keenan. What brings you to Steel Protection?”
Axel pulled his headphones down to his neck at the sound of her name.
Stella’s eyes found Blaze.
“I need help finding my friend.”
Blaze stood and hurried toward her. “I’ll take this case,” he said. “Let’s talk in the conference room.”
Blaze led her down the short hall to the conference room. He held the door, she walked through, and he closed it behind them. She sat at the table, and he sat across from her, trying to ignore the scream of his wolf.
“How can I help you?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
“My assistant manager, my friend, is missing.”
She gave him the timeline of when her young friend a twenty-year-old winter wren shifer named Nell Meadows, had gone missing. At this point it had been ten days since she’d last been seen. There was a missing person’s report. But they’d told Stella nothing else could be done.
Her eyes were bright and fierce and terrified as she recounted the story.
“Her phone last pinged on Sunday afternoon at the tower closest to her apartment.”
“Did Nell have any particular habits on Sunday afternoons? Hobbies she’d do near her house?”
Stella opened her mouth. She stopped. She closed her eyes for a second.
“She runs on a trail behind her apartment building. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before. Her keys and phone weren’t in the apartment. It would make sense that she took them.”
She sat back in her chair for the first time since she’d walked into the building.
