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I ventured into my bedroom last, my heart pounding so hard that I felt it in my ears. My room had gotten the worst of it. My dresser was tipped over, and all the clothes were out. My jewelry tree was tipped over, making all of the stud earrings I had fall out everywhere. I wasn’t going to find those for a long time.
My window was open. Had they come in through there and left through the front? Either way, Hunter was right. It was clearly a security issue.
I checked under my bed, then looked at the closet. The door was open, but it extended wider than the door showed. I crept up to it, yanking aside the clothes that were still there, and came face to face with a man wearing a black ski mask.
He smothered my mouth with his huge hand before I could scream, pressing the cold barrel of a gun against the side of my head. My stomach lurched, and my entire body shook. I couldn’t see most of his face, but his eyes were crazy enough to scare the shit out of me.
“Don’t scream,” he said. “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth now. If you make a peep, I’ll pull this trigger. Understood?”
I nodded. He took his hand off my mouth, and I sucked in a much-needed breath.
“Don’t relax just yet, honey,” the man said, grabbing me by the arm. “You’re coming with me. Don’t you dare turn around! Got it?”
I nodded again. My throat was so tight that I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to scream at this point. He took my purse and rifled through it, tossing something aside. My phone, I assumed. But I only had my work phone in my purse; my personal one was still in the band of my bra, tucked against my left breast. And thankfully, it was on silent.
I heard the man remove his mask, and he marched me toward the door, off to somewhere I was too afraid to think about.
CHAPTER28
Lucas
Iwas so furious at Chase that I could hardly think straight, but wasting time being pissed at him wasn’t helping anyone. Particularly Brooke. Were we freaking out prematurely? Maybe. The security detail was already searching for her. She might have been downstairs at the coffee shop, decompressing.
But the fact that some violent felons who had nearly attacked her before knew who she was, and she’d been followed in the past, made us more than a little uneasy.
“She pick up her phone?” I asked Hunter, who had immediately started calling her once we were done interrogating Chase.
“No. Not her work phone or her personal one. But she keeps her personal one on silent.” He gripped his phone in his hand so hard that I was afraid he’d crush it. “Her work phone might be on silent, too.”
“I’ll go down and check some of her favorite spots,” I said, heading to the stairs. “Chase, can you track her phone somehow? Has her security detail sent an update?”
“Yes,” he called after me. “And no, no updates from them.”
I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, bursting outside. A few tourists eyed me in confusion, but I brushed past them. Brooke was a creature of habit when it came to going out to eat, so I only had to check out a few places—the coffee shop, the Thai food place, and the New York-style pizza spot a short walk from the office.
I got to the coffee shop, which wasn’t too busy, but didn’t see her. The employees knew her face by now, but they hadn’t seen her, either. Neither had the people at the Thai food place, or the pizza guys.
I looped back around and went into the front entrance of the casino. It was busier than usual, a fact that I would have been excited about in any other circumstance. But today, it was just adding noise to the situation. I searched everywhere, ending up at the security office.
“I need you to show me the security footage from the last hour or so,” I said to the new head of security, Abe. He was a no-nonsense guy, and I already trusted him way more than I’d trusted any of the previous staff who had worked here for years. He was on top of things, provided necessary updates in a timely manner, and his background check was completely clean.
“Which camera?” Abe asked.
“All of them. But particularly the ones at the front and back entrances.” I stood behind him, my arms crossed over my chest as he pulled up the footage. He fast-forwarded through the recordings until I spotted Brooke leaving the elevator.
“Wait, show me that view,” I said, pointing to one quadrant of the screens. Abe did as I asked. “Play it again.”
The recording showed Brooke walking out of the casino through the front lobby with purpose. Abe switched the view when she got out front, where taxis and Ubers typically pulled around. Instead of making a turn and heading down the sidewalk to one of her favorite places, she hopped into a cab. Shit.
“Thank you,” I said, turning on my heel. The crowd waiting for the elevator was going to slow me down. I pushed through them, rushing toward the stairs.
By the time I reached the office again, Hunter was pacing, and Chase was standing over his laptop.
“Her security detail called. She slipped past them,” Hunter said, digging his hands into his hair. “What the fuck are we paying them for if she can slip away from them? Why weren’t they watching the doors, even if they thought she was working?”
“Do you have any good news?” Chase asked me, his eyes weary.
“She wasn’t at any of her favorite spots, but security cameras caught her leaving in a cab,” I said.
