“Hey Dad,” Duke said without looking away from his phone.
“I didn’t think you heard me come in.”
“I didn’t have to hear you. I saw you when you drove through the gate.” Then Duke looked up. “I integrated thesecurity system on my phone. Anybody come on this property, I know about it.”
Mick actually smiled a very slight smile that nobody would notice. But Duke, because he studied his father so closely, noticed it. Which warmed his heart. He made his father smile! That was a feat.
But he knew not to rub it in. “What are you doing home so early?”
“I thought I’d have dinner with you and your mother.” He didn’t see her car out front, but that wasn’t unusual. She usually garaged her car. “Where is she?”
“I have no idea.”
“She’s not home yet?”
Duke shook his head. “She’s probably still at her office.”
But when Mick drove over to the Graham Talent Agency earlier and didn’t see her car, he had assumed it was because she had left for home already. But now she wasn’t home? And didn’t call Duke and tell him anything? That was unusual for Roz.
He pulled out his cellphone and called her. But the call went straight to voice mail, which was unusual too. She never turned off her phone.
“No answer?” Duke asked him. Seeing that concerned look on his father’s face made him suddenly worried too.
“It went straight to voice mail.”
“You mean like she has her phone off?” Duke sat up. “Ma wouldn’t turn off her phone. Even when she’s in big meetings she keeps it on in case any of us needs her.” Then he noticed his father was on the phone again. “Who are you calling now?”
“Her detail chief.”
“But I thought you pulled security off of her when she complained about them spying on her.”
Mick didn’t respond to that.
Duke smiled. “I should have known you kept a team on her. She just doesn’t know about it. Right?”
Mick didn’t admit or deny. He didn’t answer. But then her detail chief answered his call. “Hello, Boss.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m home.”
“What do you mean home? Where’s my wife?”
“When she opted to remain at the house all day, I made the decision for us to break off coverage by nightfall.”
“What do you mean she stayed home all day?” Duke asked before his father could. “She left the house this morning.”
“She left? But her car never came outside of the gate. We were there first thing this morning. We saw when you left, Boss, but her car never came outside of the gate. We assumed she was working from home today like she does sometimes.”
Duke got worried. “So Ma has no security on her at all?” he asked his father.
“She’s not home?” the chief asked, now worried himself, but Mick ended the call and quickly pulled up the GPS on his phone that tracked her car’s location. But no signal came up. Which meant it had been unplugged. “Shit!” Mick said.
Duke saw the terror in his father’s face. “Dad, what’s wrong?”
But Mick was already hurrying out of that living room and running to his home office.
Duke jumped up and ran behind his father. When he got into the office, Mick was already sitting behind his desk and turning on his desk computer. “Daddy, what happened?”
