“Are you on speaker?”Ari asked.“Tell me you’re not on speaker.”
He was, and Jessie’s cheeks had turned the colour of the cupcake frosting she’d just made.So delightfully fucking pink.Since she’d been thrust into the mess with Amie right alongside Justin, he figured she had a right to know what was going on.He just hadn’t banked on Brax acting like an asshole, although he should have done because Brax was always an asshole.
“Jessalyn is having man trouble, so she’s staying with me until she gets back on her feet.”
Brax and Ari looked at each other, then Brax put his head in his hands.
“Hi, Jessalyn,” Ari called.“This is Brax.He got married in Vegas with twenty-four hours’ notice to piss off his wife’s fiancé.”
She paused halfway to the refrigerator.“Uh…”
Ari gave an encouraging smile.“We’re all dysfunctional here.”
“Jessie isn’t dysfunctional,” Justin told her.“She just hit a rough patch.Can we get back to the Amie problem now?”
“Amie is your personal assistant?”
He nodded.“She’s worked at Norquist Construction for seven years, and not once has she skipped work without a good reason.The cops said she probably ran off with a guy she used to date.”
“Why would they think that?”
“Because we were trying to track down people she knew, and his boss said he left town two days before Amie disappeared.”
Justin gave Ari a brief summary of events so far—Amie’s failure to show up for work after her day of PTO, their visit to her apartment with Sophy, the conversation with Brett’s former boss, and the reluctance of the police to do their jobs.
“If they went somewhere together, why wouldn’t they leave at the same time?”Ari asked.
“Exactly my point.And also they broke up, and her roommate seemed to think it was permanent this time.Do you have any contacts out here who might be able to track their phones?I’m not even sure if that’s legal or not.”
“We won’t speak about that part, okay?Give me the numbers.”
The weight Justin had been carrying around for the past two days lightened.A competent grown-up had come to help.Yes, technically Justin was an adult, and thanks to his position as CEO of a successful company, way too many people assumed he always knew the answers.
He didn’t.
“Yesterday, both phones were ringing,” Justin said after he’d read out the numbers.“But this morning, Amie’s is going straight to voicemail.”
As if the battery had run out.Why hadn’t she charged her phone?When he heard her voice, his heart had leapt, then plummeted just as fast when he realised it was only the recorded greeting.
“If the phone is turned off, we can’t be as accurate with the location, but we can get a rough idea of where it’s been.If the two phones were moving together, for example.We’d be able to see that.”
“How long will it take?”
“Give me a half hour.”
While he waited for Ari’s call, Justin took the dog out for a run.He needed to stay busy, to do some physical activity in order to keep his head in check.In the aftermath of Ruby’s death, he’d spent a lot of time exercising before collapsing into a restless sleep every night, which had the unfortunate side effect of leaving him shredded.He’d often wondered if the Blackstone House affair would have received quite so much attention if Ruby hadn’t been a blonde goddess, if Levi hadn’t been a weird genius, and if he himself hadn’t been snapped using the bottom of his shirt to wipe his brow with his abs on full display.Sure, he’d heard stories about reporters acting underhanded, but he’d never expected a photographer to be hiding in a damn bush as he arrived back at the motel he’d taken refuge in.
Anyhow, he liked to sweat out his frustrations, but today, it backfired because Ari called before he was halfway home.
“Yeah?”He sucked in air as Shiro sniffed around a tree.“Sorry.I mean, thanks for getting back so quickly.”
“Did I interrupt something?”
“The dog’s morning constitutional.Did you find the phone?”
“Brett appears to be moving around in Salt Lake City, Utah.And as I said before, we can’t be so accurate with Amie’s device, but it doesn’t seem as if it ever left your office.It’s either inside or close by.”
What?“Why would she leave her phone behind?”
