Page 131 of No Headlines Please

From somewhere inside, he called out, "You've got to get over here, like now!"

Already, I was reaching for my towel, dripping water and leaving little patches of foam in my wake. As I scrubbed at the suds, I called back, "Are you hurt?"

There was a long pause. "What?"

I called it again, louder this time. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not hurt," he called back, sounding like the idea was ridiculous.

I paused. "So why are you yelling?"

"Because you're gonna kick yourself if you miss it. Now, get over here before it's gone!"

Good Lord.

Before what was gone?

A bear?

I shuddered to think.

Or…maybe a moose?

Did they even have moose around here?

Our little cluster of lakeside cabins backed up to the woods, so honestly, it seemed entirely possible. The nearest town was tiny, the wilderness seemed endless, and Lake Superior stretched beyond the narrow beach like an inland ocean.

I called back, "Should I bring a weapon?" It's not like I had a weapon, but the cabin did have a broom.

Hey, it was better than nothing.

But already, Walt was hollering back, "Why? You gonna shoot my TV?"

Wait, what? I pressed my face closer to the screen. I still couldn't see Walt, but both cabin windows that faced me were wide open in spite of cool October air. "Wait…so it's not an emergency?"

"Just get over here! Now!"

I yanked on my underpants, followed quickly by my leggings and the oversized sweatshirt I'd draped over the towel rack. I shoved my feet into my sneakers without bothering with socks and hightailed it over to Walt's cabin, arriving damp and breathless as I shoved open his cabin door.

Walt was planted directly in front of his small, portable television, the one he'd hauled up from Chicago and somehow connected to a satellite dish on the roof.

He gave me a quick glance before stepping aside to reveal what had gotten him so excited.

At what I saw, I literally gasped. Right there on the screen, there he was, the guy I'd known as Maddox.

He was surrounded by reporters as he left some high rise in Chicago. Or at least I assumed it was Chicago. Regardless, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

Dressed in a dark, tailored suit, he looked exactly as I remembered – tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and unfairly handsome with a shadow of stubble along his jaw.

Even on the small TV screen, he was magnetic and imposing, like a movie star, come to life. The reporters converged on him from all sides, but he moved effortlessly through the crowd like a man accustomed to having the world make way.

His mouth was tight as he said only two words. "No comment."

And with that, he ducked into the back seat of a waiting town car, which promptly sped away, leaving the reporters hollering after it.

The camera panned back to a pretty blonde reporter who said, "That was Maddox McGuiness, the Chicago real estate mogul who has so far declined to comment on the disappearance of his former fiancée, Sloane Hayworth."

Holy crap.