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7. Just Another Day
Cash
It’s just another day.
Beth is sitting at the reception counter, the white marble under my shoes is as flawless and shiny as it was when I left work on Friday, and people come and go without a break in their weekday hustle.
It’s business as usual for the thirty-eighth floor of Mont Center.
Except my wife is missing—the company’s goddamn chairperson—and you’d think that would be reason enough to hang a sign, to set off an alarm warning of the black cloud hovering.
“Good morning, Beth,” I say more out of habit than an actual desire to acknowledge the day.
“Good morning, Mr. Montgomery.” She doesn’t miss a step in her greeting, but there’s a hitch in her voice, a barely discernible strain on her young face, a reminder that not all is right at MontBlake. Somehow, I find it comforting.
I still don’t want to be here, don’t want to see people, don’t want to face the questions in their eyes. Especially the voiceless speculations.
Those are the worst.
Disappearing into my office, I shut the door behind me and let out a long breath. It’s true that this is the last place I want to be, but it’s the only one where seeing Jules is possible. The irony of that is a twist in my gut. As I wander toward my workspace, I shed my jacket and drape it over the back of a chair. I’ve just settled behind the desk when my cell vibrates from my pants pocket. I reach for it and find the number of the private investigator I hired flashing on the screen.
“Please tell me you’ve got a lead,” I say, hoping like hell he found something—anything—since I spoke with him yesterday. I loathe the desperation in my voice, but there’s no hiding it. No reining it in.
I need answers.
I need Monica found.
I need to move past this once and for all.
I fucking need Jules like I need air.
“My source told me the police don’t have jack shit,” he says as I pace an agitated path in front of the windows. “Your wife hasn’t used her credit cards, and the only people who’ve reported seeing her are nut jobs.”
“So we’re still at square one.”
“Not exactly.” He pauses, and I hear the tapping of keys. “I heard back from my tech guy. He tracked the photo back to Lydia Hirsch. And get this—financial records indicate that your wife paid a sizable amount to Hirsch about three months ago.”
Drumming silence follows his words, pounding in my ears, throbbing behind my eyelids. I turn a half circle in my office. “Did you make any progress on the video surveillance in my building?”
“Still nothing. There’s been no sign of your wife’s lover coming or going from the penthouse. We’re looking into possible video tampering now.”
“Send me everything you have on Lydia Hirsch,” I tell him.
More tapping of a keyboard sounds. “It’s not a lot, but I’ll send you what I have.”
“All right. Let me know as soon as you have more.” I end the call and drop back into my chair, spinning the possibilities in my head. The angles. The facts.
Monica paid the woman she wanted me to hire a very large sum of money, and now Lydia is dead. Was she blackmailing my wife? The idea sends my heart to the bottom of my gut.
I’m in a daze when a quick knock on the door alerts me of Jules’ arrival. Shaking the conversation with the PI from my mind, I call for her to come in. She edges the door open while clutching two cardboard cups in her hands. I know one is tea with too much sugar and not enough cream, and the other is for me.
Just another day.
Until our eyes meet.
The explosion between us is powerful enough to stall her momentum across the office for two seconds, a hiccup in her stride. It’s fierce enough to eviscerate my mind, tighten my pants, and send a tremble through me.
We’ve had heat from the moment we met—unbearable and suffocating in its reality—but this is levels above the sexual tension that shadows us no matter where we go. This is the kind of nuclear blast that can only happen after two people have carnal knowledge of each other.
