“Someone’s been here.”
He stood up, dragging the phone and the file on his lap with him. “Where are the guards?”
Hearing the quickfire of her words and the gulping in of air touched off something inside him. A harsh breath hiccupped in his chest. That giant, churning ball of anxiety in his gut did not ease. He couldn’t stay neutral and disconnected. She was not just a job.
“Right behind me.” Her voice faded then started up again. “In the hall.”
He walked around the side of the desk, knocking a stack of paperwork to the floor. Documents crunched under his shoes as he doubled back and opened his top drawer to find his keys and wallet.
He had to get to her. Now. “You do not leave them. I’ll be there in a second.”
“Okay.” She exhaled into the phone, loud and shaky. “Just hurry.”
Wren blew through a red light and took more than one corner too fast. The wild ride matched the pumping inside him. Anxiety rolled over him as he drove, roaring past the speed limit and earning both stares and honking.
Finding a spot to park on her street proved impossible, so he stopped in the middle and called for Stan to come down and take care of the car while he checked on Emery. He threw open the door and bolted for the front of her building. He didn’t miss a step as he crossed paths with his man and passed the keys before heading for her door.
She stood in the entry. Seeing her there, with her arms crossed in front of her while she gnawed on her bottom lip, had him rushing down the hall.
“Emery?” He didn’t realize he’d said her name out loud until she spun around.
Her face crumpled as she pushed away from the doorframe and lurched toward him. “You’re here.”
“Of course.” He caught her and wrapped his arms around her. Inhaled the familiar scent of her shampoo. She was safe, but he still had no idea what happened.
He maneuvered their joined bodies until her back faced the inside of her apartment and he could peek in. His mind spun as he looked around. One of his men stood in the center of the room, taking pictures. The rest of the room waited in shambles. Ripped papers and crumpled files. The boxes of information she kept on Tiffany’s case were overturned and emptied out. He hadn’t looked inside those, but if her collection mirrored his then most of it was gone.
Slowly he came back to the present. Held her until his muscles ached, but there was no way he’d let go. Not when he could feel the material of his jacket bunched in her fists and puffs of air against his neck from her labored breathing. His mind flashed to comfort and he fought for the right words to say. When nothing came to him, he went with smoothing his hand up and down her back while the other one kept her locked against him.
Wren glanced at the bodyguard in charge, Keith. “Anything missing?”
The man stood up, all six-foot-four retired marine of him. “I checked the entire apartment. I can’t speak as to personal items, but these boxes took a hit.”
“He’s back.” She mumbled the words against Wren’s shirt.
He still heard them. Lifted her head. “Who?”
“The person who took Tiffany.” After gulping in a huge intake of breath she stood back with her hand still resting on his arm. “That’s the only thing that makes sense, right? I asked around about you, bugged the senator. Made someone nervous.”
“That suggests Tiffany knew her attacker. That it wasn’t a random act by someone passing through.” Which was exactly what Wren feared after the first breakin. A second could not be considered a coincidence.
“I know.” A shiver had Emery pulling her body in tighter.
“Do we call the detective?” the bodyguard asked.
“No.” Emery almost screamed the reply.
Wren wasn’t sure that was the wrong answer for right now, but he doubted they had the same reasoning on that. “Because?”
She pulled back, not the whole way but enough to put some space between their bodies. She took one step then another, all while holding on to Wren’s jacket and the arm underneath. “I just want to go through what’s here and what’s missing.”
“There could be prints,” the bodyguard pointed out.
“Did you . . .” Before Wren got the rest of the question out about having filmed, photographed and gotten the supplies to check for prints, Keith nodded. Wren looked at Emery again. “He’s handled it.”
She swayed a bit but stayed still. “I don’t know what that means.”
“We should leave.”
She burst into action. Shuffled across the floor, crouching down to look at this paper and that one. Before he could catch her arm, she maneuvered around the couch. Every muscle sprung to action, like a bundle of exposed nerves. The walking, the scanning, the studying. Emery unleashed an amount of energy that had the whole room tilting in response.
“I have to look through these.” She bent over by the edge of the couch and scooped up two fistfuls of papers. She looked at each one, reading and then dropping when she got to the end. “We can tell what he wants by seeing what’s no longer here.”