Page 78 of Keeping Zita

“Miss Darlington? No. Do you know where she is? She was supposed to be here this morning. We skipped over the time slot for her report, hoping she’d appear sooner or later to give it.”

“Fuck,” Obi-Wan said, turning without giving the men and women in the room another word. Zita wasn’t there. Hadn’t shown up at all. Now an urgency was driving him. Unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Yes, he’d felt anxious while on a mission. Felt a need to drop off or pick up the special forces teams he transported on a regular basis, but this was different. Zita wasn’t a soldier. She was a civilian…who he now couldn’t help but think might be in serious danger.

He stalked back to the lobby and to the woman behind the counter.

“I need a key to room one-fourteen.”

“I’m sorry, are you on the occupancy list?” the woman asked.

Obi-Wan didn’t have time for this. He opened his mouth to tell the woman to give him the fucking key, when Buck put a hand on his arm and pushed him to the side.

“Our friend is in that room, and she missed the important meeting taking place down the hall this morning. We’re afraid she’s sick or something and want to check on her. We already knocked, but she’s not answering. We just want to look inside to see if she’s there, sleeping, sick, or something. Maybe you could ask someone from housekeeping to let us in, instead of giving us a key? We just want to check on her. The housekeeper could stay with us the entire time, to make sure we aren’t there to take anything or do anything we shouldn’t.”

He gave the woman an innocent-looking smile.

“Well…I guess so. It might be a few minutes before someone’s free to come assist you.”

“That’s okay. We’ll just meet them outside the room, thank you,” Buck said, as he took Obi-Wan’s arm in a firm grip and pulled him toward the exit.

As soon as they were outside, Obi-Wan said, “Something’s wrong. She should’ve been in that meeting. I left her here this morning. She was inside her room, the door shut. She could’ve fallen and hit her head or something. She might need an ambulance.”

“Breathe, Obi-Wan, we’ll get in there and see what’s going on. If we need to call for help, we will.”

For good measure, Obi-Wan knocked on the motel door again when they got there, and just like before, no one answered. No sound at all came from inside. As they waited for someone to unlock the door, he paced. And tried to understand what was going on.

“I don’t want to bring this up…but what if she’s not inside? What’s the plan?” Buck asked.

Obi-Wan didn’t even want to contemplate that. He didn’t want Zita hurt or sick, but if she wasn’t inside that room, the possibilities were endless as to where she might be.

“Could she have gotten cold feet and gone back to California early?” Buck asked gently.

“No.” Obi-Wan’s answer was swift and curt.

“Obi-Wan,” Buck started, his tone sympathetic.

“I said no, Buck. She didn’t leave without saying a word to me. We didn’t ask the lady if she’d checked out, but I know to the bottom of my heart she didn’t up and leave. She didn’t get cold feet. We had plans for tonight.”

“All right, if she didn’t leave, what other options are there? You know her way better than any of us. Does she have any vengeful exes? Anyone she met here in Virginia who might have a reason to hurt her? I haven’t heard about any serial killers or rapists on the loose in this area—no, don’t look at me like that. I’m just trying to make the unexplainable, explainable.”

Obi-Wan took a deep breath in through his nose as he tried to calm his irritational anger toward his friend. The thought of Zita being targeted by a fucking serial killer or rapist made him want to go on a rampage. He stopped pacing and lowered his head. His hands fisted as he forced himself to calm. To think. He normally had no problem controlling his emotions. He had to in order to be a good pilot.

He had no idea if Zita had a violent ex-boyfriend in her past, as they hadn’t really discussed previous relationships. Not that he wanted to know who she’d been with before him. He was a typical guy in that regard, he supposed. He didn’t mind that she had a dating history, but he didn’t want to know about it.

Then out of the blue, it hit him. “Silas Graves,” he bit out, lifting his head and meeting Buck’s gaze.

“Who?”

“Silas Graves. He was Carmen St. James’s bodyguard, then when she left, he was transferred to Logan Striker while we were on the other side of the state filming. She told me a couple days before we left Fallport that he approached her on set and told her to stay away from me ‘or else.’”

“Or else? What the fuck does that mean?”

Obi-Wan didn’t have a chance to answer, as a woman pushing a housekeeping cart was headed their way.

“About fucking time,” he muttered, knowing he was being an ass but not caring.

Buck took the lead, thanking the woman for meeting them and once more reassuring her that all they wanted to do was look inside the room to see if their friend was there.

The housekeeper looked nervous, but she nodded and held a plastic key card up to the electronic plate at the door. She stepped back to allow them entry, but didn’t go far.