It was hard as hell concentrating on work with everyone out of the office and knowing that Kari was home. I just wanted to be with her all the damn time. I figured it was what everyone called the honeymoon stage, but damn it if I didn’t want to just be with her. Eating, sleeping, hiking, watching TV—didn’t matter. Just being with her is all I wanted.
Everyone had left a few hours before. The office was quiet, which used to help me work better, but something about the stillness was a little unsettling. The building, made out of split-faced block, settled a lot and when it did, it cracked and popped. The metal roof made all kinds of racket with the wind blowing and, for some reason, I was on edge.
“Ugh,” I groaned, trying my best to concentrate on a budget. Franklin, our project superintendent, was really losing it. He’d worked for Cane’s father for years and Cane couldn’t get rid of him. I was going to seriously have to talk with him about at least getting him out of a “making decisions” type of position.
The wind was picking up, slamming into the windows of my office. Everything shook and rattled and I found myself on alert.
What the hell is going on with me?
I shook my head and tried to block out the feeling that something wasn’t right.
It’s just my nerves wanting to go home. Buckle down and get this shit done and get the hell outta here.
My phone went off beside me, bouncing across my desk. I looked at the screen and saw Blaine’s number.
What the fuck?
I silenced it, not wanting to hear what he had to say. As if I didn’t have enough distractions before, Blaine would only add to them and what he had to say didn’t matter. Not a bit.
I had the girl.
Nothing else mattered.
I finished up the budget and took a look at a few invoices Norm had put on my desk. I was putting my papers away when I saw headlights pulling in. I stood up and pulled back the blinds and saw Kari’s car pulling under the awning outside my office. I started around my desk to let her in the side door when my phone rang again. I took a quick glance but didn’t know the number.
I answered it as I went through my office door and popped open the side door, smiling at Kari.
“Hello?” I asked, kissing a smiling Kari on the lips. She palmed my dick in her hand and I shot her a look, trying not to groan. She giggled.
“Max? Is that you?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
I let the door shut behind me and followed Kari into my office.
“This is Maggie West, Sam’s mother.” Her voice was crackly, a smoker’s voice for sure.
I paused in the doorway and motioned for Kari to grab a seat. She furrowed her brows, biting her bottom lip.
I turned away from her so I could concentrate. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m really sorry to bother you. I got your number off your company’s website. I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
Kari grabbed a seat at my desk and wiggled the mouse to my computer. She flashed me a mega-watt smile when she saw her picture saved as my home screen.
“My daughter moved back home with me a couple of days ago. She’s been holed up in her room, acting very strangely. She left earlier this evening and I just went in there to take some laundry and . . . Max, I’m a little nervous.”
“Why?” I asked, trying to figure out how this affected me.
She cleared her throat. “There was a notebook, maybe a scrapbook is a better word, open on her bed. I . . . I don’t know what to think about what she’s up to.”
I turned my back to Kari and placed one hand on the back of my neck. “What was in there, Mrs. West?”
Just cut to the fucking chase.
“She has lots of pictures of you and a lady—a pretty brunette. There are pictures, diagrams of houses. There are lists of things that look like a schedule of your daily movements and a girl named Kari. There’s contact information, stuff about a hospital in Scottsdale—”
“Mrs. West, I hate to cut you off,” I said, feeling my blood run cold, “but where is Sam now?”
“I don’t know,” she said simply. “But I’m worried. When she came by and asked to move back in, she wasn’t herself and she’s been more removed from reality than I’ve seen her in a long time.” She let out a deep breath, the exhaustion and worry thick. “She’s not well, Max. I’ve been worried about her for a few months now. She’s been erratic and like she was before . . .”
“Before what?”
“This is all my fault.”
The tree outside my window was blowing hard, whipping its branches against the glass, while Kari clicked away on my computer. Everything seemed completely ordinary . . . but it wasn’t. I felt it.
“What’s your fault?”
“I should have been better to her. I knew she needed help. I should’ve done right by her . . .” She sighed into the phone. “I think Sam might be looking for you. I keep a revolver around here for protection—always have. And it’s gone. There’s this letter on top of her scrapbook, well, maybe it isn’t a letter, but a rant about how you and she are meant to be together. I just . . . I can’t stop worrying and I really think you need to know this. To keep an eye out for her. I just think she’s snapped.”