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Chapter Twenty-Five
MATTY
On the way down the stairs to the front desk, I call Aaron, crossing my fingers that he’ll have what I need.
And that he won’t decide to beat the shit out of me for losing his sister…
I know I’d be tempted to rain down misery on him, if he lost mine.
“What’s up?” he asks, answering on the second ring. “Does Melissa need a ride? I’ve been watching the water levels rise out by her place on the news. It’s getting bad. She shouldn’t wait too long to decide or there won’t be a decision to make.”
“She’s fine for now,” I say, hoping it’s true. I feel like a shit brother for not checking on her again since this morning, but I’ve been a little busy. “I was actually calling about Nora.”
His tone cools. “What about Nora? Is she okay?”
“I was wondering if she’d turned her location sharing back on?” I ask, avoiding answering his question. I don’t know if she’s okay. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she is, but knowing exactly where she’s headed would help. A lot.
“Why?” he asks, worry creeping into his voice. “Isn’t she with you? I thought she was with you, and you were enlisting the full help of the CIA to keep my sister safe. What the fuck happened, Matty?”
I bite the inside of my lip hard enough to draw blood. He isn’t saying anything I haven’t said to myself, but it cuts deeper to hear it from her brother. “I’m not sure right now, Aaron. I went to do a sweep of the hotel. When I got back, she was gone. But I’m working on finding out where she went as quickly as possible.”
Aaron curses colorfully.
“I know,” I cut in, pushing through the stairwell door into the lobby. “I’m going to ask the hotel to check their surveillance video for signs of what happened right now. But I thought, if she’d turned on location sharing with you again, that might speed things along.”
“No, she didn’t,” he bites out. “Fuck! I knew I should have made her tell me where she was and picked her up this morning. You McGuires can’t be trusted. All you care about is each other. No one else in town matters, at least not as much as your clan of inbred assholes.”
I swallow a retort, reminding myself that he’s upset and has every right to be. And he’s correct, my family can be insular at times, though, to my knowledge, we’ve always been careful not to inbreed. “All right. Well, let me know if that changes. I’ll keep you updated.”
“You’d better keep me—” I end the call and shift my phone to silent mode when he immediately calls back.
I’ll do my best to make things better with Aaron later,afterNora is safe.
At the front desk, the woman manning the computer is on the phone, checking on an upcoming reservation for a guest. I shift to one side, glancing behind her at the small office partially concealed by fake ivy hanging over the door. But it doesn’t look like anyone is inside, and I can’t afford to waste time waiting my turn today.
Embracing my jerk side, I reach over the desk, pressing down on the black tab to end the call.
The clerk looks up, her jaw dropping. “I was with a customer.”
“I’m so sorry, but I urgently need your help,” I say, shifting into “sad puppy dog eyes, please help me” mode, which isn’t hard. Iama sad puppy and bound to get even sadder if I can’t make this right. “My wife disappeared while the fire alarm was going off. I’m afraid something terrible has happened. Her brother is a violent man, who’s threatened her numerous times in the past. I was just wondering if you could call someone to help me go through the surveillance footage near our room? The sooner I can see what happened, the faster I can get the right kind of help.”
The woman’s outrage softens with empathy. “Oh no. Of course. I’m so sorry. That’s awful. I’ll get our IT person down here for you.” She reaches out, tapping the receiver again before punching in three numbers on the keypad. When the person on the other end answers, she says, “Hello, Kate, I have a guest at the front desk whose wife is missing. She disappeared during the alarm malfunction. We need your help checking the surveillance cameras from the past thirty minutes or so for suspicious activity in the hallway near his room.” She pauses, nodding. “Okay, great. See you in a few.”
She hangs up and shifts her attention back to me. “Kate is on her way. If you want to wait just there,” she says, motioning toward the end of the desk, “she’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Of course,” she says. “I hope this turns out to be a misunderstanding and everything is fine.”
“Me, too,” I say, drifting to the end of the desk as she answers another call—probably the person I hung up on a few minutes ago.
I fight the urge to clap my hands and demand everyone hurry the fuck up. The staff is under no obligation to go through their security footage for me. They could tell me to get lost and take this up with the police if I want access to their files.
I have to be patient, even if every second that passes feels like an eternity and the fear that Nora is in serious danger is starting to feel like a vice slowly tightening around my neck.
Finally, Kate appears—thanks to her name tag, there’s not a moment of confusion—and I hurry through the introductions and explanations as quickly as possible.
She nods, her gray-streaked ponytail bobbing. “Got it. Pulling that footage shouldn’t be a problem. We did a system wide check a few days ago and the cameras were working perfectly.”
