I don’t know why this dude wants to meet at a café. Not very inconspicuous if you ask me. I’d have chosen a parking lot, or a dark alley. Fuck, maybe Faye is right—am I overdramatic?
I arrive ten minutes late, because I had to find the fuckin’ place, then glance around the café. I don’t even know what this Joe looks like, probably something I should have asked Faye but forgot to. I can usually sense a cop a mile away—I just look for someone who gives off an air of entitlement. I’m not wearing my cut, because that would just be stupid, and I have no idea if he knows what I look like either.
I’m scanning the café when something catches my eye, or should I say someone. When our eyes catch and hold, and she continues to stare at me expectantly, I walk over and sit down opposite her, hoping I’m wrong.
I have to be wrong.
“I thought you were just going to stand there all day staring at me dumbly, because that’s not obvious, right?” she says dryly, pressing her plump pink lips together. Even her voice is appealing, husky, and sensual.
I open my mouth, then close it.
Why does she have to be the one working on this? And she’s Elizabeth’s cousin?
Her short blond hair is slicked back today, but it suits her. Fuck, she’s beautiful. What a shame. A waste of beauty. There’s no way in hell I’d date a cop. Hell fuckin’ no.
“I had no idea who I was meeting today,” I say, finding my voice. “So you have me at a disadvantage.”
“You didn’t know that was me next to you at the biker bar?” she asks, raising her brows. “Why exactly do I need your help again?”
Of course she’s rude.
A rude cop. Are the two mutually exclusive?
I grit my teeth and reply with, “Probably because you still haven’t found her.”
Her eyes narrow, and she looks down into her coffee. “Tell me what you have.”
That must have been hard for her to ask, after her previous comment, or maybe she has no pride at all, who knows. I pull the disk out of my pocket and slide it over to her side of the table. Just as I pull my hand back, she reaches for it, causing our fingers to briefly touch. I retract my hand as quickly as I can without knocking over the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table.
Fuck.
I rub my fingers together, feeling as if I’ve been zapped. What the fuck was that? I want to be near her yet as far away as possible at the same time. What is it about this woman? She’s a cop, for fuck’s sake. And she can’t stand me either. I can see the contempt in her pretty blue eyes. She doesn’t look anything like Elizabeth, but they do have the same coloring with the blond hair and blue eyes.
Right, Elizabeth.
I need to fuckin’ concentrate, because she is the real reason I’m here. Not anything to do with the woman sitting opposite me. She is nothing to me.
She clears her throat, also looking uncomfortable, but then her expression goes blank. “Now tell me everything you found out. I need to know. We don’t have time to waste, I want my cousin back.”
I realize that I don’t even know her name.
“What’s your name?” I ask, leaning back in my seat.
She licks her lips, then says, “Johanna.”
Johanna, I repeat in my head, then lean forward and tell her everything she needs to know.
FOUR
Johanna
EVER since my cousin went missing, I’ve been a wreck. I wonder if people can tell. I’m barely holding on, but I know that I need to stay strong, that everyone is looking to me with hope in their eyes, like I’m their last chance of finding her.
I have to find her.
I don’t know why we need a biker working with us, but at this point I’ll take any help I can get. Is he here because of the supposed biker connection to her disappearance? And if so, wouldn’t he side with the bikers? I’m curious about the man sitting across from me. Not only have I never seen a biker so good-looking, I’ve never seen any man so striking. He’s tall, extremely so. I wonder if he ever played basketball. Dark, thick hair tied at his nape, bright hazel eyes framed in thick dark lashes. Lashes wasted on a boy. He runs his hand across the stubble on his cheeks as I realize I haven’t paid any attention to the last thing he said.
I clear my throat and respond to the last thing I remember. “I’ll see if anyone reported another girl missing. We might have to wait another twenty-four hours though. I’ll alert the police that the bar might be being used to lure women into whatever they are doing with them. I really hope we can stop this before it happens again.”
The thought of my cousin missing makes it hard for me to breathe. What was she doing at that stupid biker bar? It seems so out of character for her. Elizabeth hardly even drank.
While we don’t see each other that often, Elizabeth and I are still pretty close, our whole family is, and her disappearance has been hard on everyone. Whenever we have a problem, we call each other to vent. When I’m down, she cheers me up, and vice versa. She’s more like a sister to me than anything, since I’m an only child, and we’ve shared a lot of memories together.
I remember when I visited her over the holidays one year, I think I was about seven. We were playing on the playground with a few other kids, and one of the little boys pushed Elizabeth down because she wouldn’t get off the swing. Without thinking, I rushed over to the boy and punched him in the face. Blood started gushing from his nose. I helped Elizabeth up and pulled her into me, protecting her, always protecting her. For as long as I can remember.
Where is she?
I’ve been a cop for the last four years, just like my mother before me, and I’ve seen things that will haunt me in my dreams forever. However, when something like this happens to you personally, you get to feel firsthand how the people you usually try to help feel, and it’s unlike any pain I’ve ever known. The helplessness, the worry. I can’t sleep; I can’t eat; I keep playing out different scenarios in my head. I keep dreaming about her, calling out for help, and I’m trying but I can’t save her. I need to save her. I keep telling myself that I’m not doing enough, that I need to push more, try harder. How can I be okay knowing that she’s out there, going through god knows what?
“Excellent,” Ranger says, looking like he wants to escape. He never told me his name, but when Faye texted me, she said I’d be meeting with Ranger. What kind of name is that anyway? How’d he get it?
“I’ll call you and let you know how it goes,” I say when he stays silent. “Will you let me know if you find anything else?”
He nods once, throws some money on the table . . . for my coffee? Then stands and leaves before I can protest, my mouth open, about to tell him that I can pay for myself. He didn’t even have anything to drink, and he left a twenty-dollar bill.
Who exactly is this man?