At Any Turn

I hissed out a breath and threw the stack of papers back on the desk. I did not want to deal with this now. I couldn’t get my worry about Emilia out of my head. I gazed out the window for a long moment, wondering why I couldn’t focus on anything else tonight.

“Adam. Get your head in the game, man. Where are you right now?”

“I was attempting to spend some time with my family—”

“And mooning after your girlfriend who has moved out. What the hell has happened to you? I need the shark CEO who never batted an eye over pulling a twelve-hour Sunday at work and not the hippy who went off to hike the trails and contemplate his navel.”

I shot out of my chair and moved over to the window, folding my arms against my chest. “Enough, Jordan, all right?”

His chair squeaked as he shifted in it. “Christ, I’m sorry, but—I need you here. Where are you?”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m worried about her. Something’s not right—it’s just a gut feeling. There’s something she’s not telling me. But I know better than to ask you for advice regarding women.”

“Well, at least that’s smart of you. What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know. She’s not feeling well, I guess. She’s not talking to me and she’s not talking to her mom.”

He scratched at his stylish goatee and threw me a sly look. “Well, there are ways you can find out, you know. If I take care of it for you, maybe you can concentrate on this shit.”

I frowned at him. “What, like hire an army interrogator or something?”

He swiveled in his chair. “I know a guy—like before, when you had me look into the mom’s finances. He could tail Mia for a week—tell you everything you need to know.”

I turned back to the window. “No.”

“Adam, you are going to be fucking useless to me and this company unless you snap out of this shit. What harm would it do you? She’d never know. This guy is good. You’d have peace of mind and your company gets its fully-functioning CEO back.”

Hire spies, Sun Tzu said. And connecting with Heath was going to lead me nowhere because he was loyal to a fault. He’d never betray her. But a pro could find out quickly. He’d dig up whatever I paid him to. But was there anything to dig up? Was she really keeping something from me?

“We’ll see.” I cleared my throat and squared my shoulders. “Let’s go over this thing page by page, then. You need some more food or anything?”

Jordan watched me with open puzzlement on his face. Finally he shrugged. “I’m good.”

We went over the paperwork in detail until well after midnight. By the time I got to bed, I could hardly see straight from exhaustion. And I was already dreading Monday morning, which had arrived before I even closed my eyes. A few hours of shuteye and a whole lot of coffee would be the only way I’d get through the next day.

***

A graveyard. All full of bright light. It was just before midday. A dry breeze blew, a mournful sound wailing through the trees. Crows cawed in the distance. I held a handful of roses in my hand, squeezing the stems inside my fist, the thorns stinging, prickling into my palm. I’d scanned every headstone. Every damn one. I’d been there for hours. Days. Weeks. And not a one of them was what I was looking for.

I turned, making tracks over the graves I’d seen before. Reading names over and over again. I’d retraced my steps over and over again, knowing I was lost, getting nowhere. “Bree? Where are you?” I called, and the voice was not mine, but a child’s. The boy I’d been. “Bree. Come back to me!”

I started awake, unable to breathe, heart racing. Mind scattered. My T-shirt soaked with sweat and the wavy lines of the beginning of a migraine aura at the edge of my vision. Bree…That desperate cry echoed over and over in my head. She’s gone. Forever, a dry, cynical voice—the voice of my adult self—answered.

I fell back against my damp pillow, weak with panic. Yes, it was a dream, but the reality was all too terrifying. I couldn’t lose Emilia as I’d lost Bree.

My hunger to know what was going on was even more intense this morning than it had been the previous night when I’d spoken to Jordan. I thought about his offer, about every possibility that would spring from hiring a PI. I weighed the pros and cons.

Inevitably, an hour later, I called Jordan. It was five a.m.

“What’s up?” he croaked into the phone. I’d obviously awakened him.

“Call your guy. Tell him to touch base with me and I’ll give him the information he needs. I want this low-key, okay? No tailing her, just looking into things.”