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“Doctor Oakley Addison.”
Her eyes grew large. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I hope you find her.”
“Thank you again.”
Sharlee and Kaden worked on identifying the family members, finding them, and getting addresses. “I found where they lived. Not the people yet, but the sister should still live in the house, right? I’m checking utilities on the house. I sent the address to your cell phones. Garrett will meet you two there in twenty.”
“Thanks, babe.”
His gut jumped, and his heart rate rose. Would he say endearments to Oakley again? He stopped the thought.
“She could be there,” said Ryker.
“Maybe, if Audra was so upset about it that she blamed Oakley, she might have done something like kidnap her,” Jac said as they climbed into his SUV.
“Ryker, we’ll find her,” Jac reassured him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It isn’t a dead end. It’s an elimination. We keep eliminating until we have only one viable option and close in. I do this every day. I know what I’m talking about, no matter how hard it is to wait. We won’t stop until we find her safe and sound. “
But despite their best efforts, each hour seemed to bring more questions than answers. Ryker stopped in at work while waiting for more news. Doing his cases distracted him for a few minutes at a time, and he found comfort because he temporarily hired Shandra from Oakley’s office as his personal assistant. It helped him feel as though his sweetling was just around the corner.
“I guess I can tell you now since I’m not working for her anymore.”
“Tell me what? And don’t forget that if Oakley wants you back, I won’t be the competition.”
“Oakley’s last appointment on that Friday was with a new client named Amy Johnson,” Shandra said. “It said prior client, but I couldn’t find any record of an ‘Amy Johnson’ in our system. It’s like that name appeared out of thin air.”
Ryker’s pulse quickened. A false identity? This was no coincidence. Someone had deliberately targeted Oakley.
Ryker picked up his phone and hit #2. Jac answered. “We need to find a woman called Amy Johnson,” Ryker said, his jaw clenching. “She may be connected to Oakley’s disappearance.”
Jac agreed. “Sharlee can run a trace on the name and ID. If it’s fake, we’ll find out soon enough.” He hesitated. “You know, some of Oakley’s clients can be... unstable. Like Audra’s brother Charles. It’s possible one of them may have taken her.”
Ryker swallowed hard, not wanting to consider that possibility. But he had to face the facts. As a psychiatrist, Oakley dealt with troubled people every day. Any of them could have a motive to hurt her.
“Where the hell is the police in all this?”
“Our contact is running the leads we find up the flagpole as we are. Sharing is caring, and the more we have on our side, the better.”
“We should look into her recent cases as well,” Ryker said. “No one is above suspicion right now.”
Ryker prayed they found a lead that panned out soon. The longer Oakley remained missing, the greater the danger she was in. Ryker couldn’t lose her now, not when they were so close to building a future together. He would do whatever it took to bring her home safely, even if it meant confronting dangerous suspects he would have normally left to the police.
Because a life without Oakley was no life at all.
“I need to get out. I’m coming your way,” said Ryker.
“See you soon.”
Oakley was his heart, his home, his entire world, and he would stop at nothing to save her. He would take her in any way she came so long as he could have her alive.
His thoughts shifted to Oakley’s office manager. Shandra was efficient enough, but he remembered what Oakley had said about how she was not well-versed in office manager skills and confidentiality, so he wasn’t impressed that she had waited until now to divulge important information. She said she was Oakley’s friend, but he remembered Oakley didn’t care for her work ethic, and they had never hung out since he’d known her. He would need to dissect that later.
He had an excellent office manager, so employing a personal assistant seemed appropriate because he was still positive that they would find Oakley. She would open her office back up and, if they both wanted to, hire Shandra back.
Yesterday, he finished another case and got an acceptable outcome. His clients were happy with him, but he didn’t think he could do this forever. Loving Oakley and worrying about her had left him hypervigilant, grumpy, tired, desperate, and sad. Oakley would have enjoyed hearing about his last case. It had involved a first responder who was wrongfully accused of causing a death.
After connecting with Oakley, Ryker had refocused his life to choose her over work. He had discussed the legal status of her business and was amazed that she was the sole proprietor but had very little other than an LLC set up. He’d quickly brought Oakley in as a client and settled her business affairs. Just a week after she’d returned to town, she’d asked him if he would be her second on the business. Not partnership, but as her attorney. Did she have a premonition?
“Ryker,” Sharlee’s voice cut through his thoughts when he arrived. “We found something. You need to see this.”
