Hide and Seek. Desiree Holt
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this?” Silence greeted them. Finally whoever was on the other end hung up. Avery looked at Devon. “Is that like the call you got this morning?”
She nodded. “Same thing.”
“One thing it tells us,” Shari told her. “Whoever this is, they don’t have your father. Otherwise they wouldn’t be looking for him. And they want him pretty damn bad.”
“Or more than one group is after him,” Avery added, “and these people are pissed. And we still don’t know how the death of Vincent Pellegrino factors into this. It’s too damn coincidental for it not to.”
Devon’s throat was so dry she had to swallow twice before she could get the next question out. “More than one group?”
“Anything is possible,” Sheri reminded her. “If we had some idea what the hell this is all about we might have better answers. And this house is so immaculate there isn’t a sniff of a clue. I hope to hell we can get something off that cell phone.”
“Do you think they’ll come up here looking for him again?” Devon was almost afraid to ask the question.
“That’s always a possibility.” She gave Devon a reassuring smile. “But that’s why you’ll have Logan, plus a lot of other safeguards.”
“If these guys are the same two who were at the marina,” Avery commented, “they sure don’t seem like the kind of friends Graham Cole would have. Apparently Gary didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in two dirtbags asking about one of the town’s leading citizens. Asshole.”
Sheri made a rude noise. “I’m sure Gary didn’t even process that. He’s so clueless he didn’t even know Princess Devon wasn’t in its slip. I don’t know why the owners even keep him on.”
“My question would be how did they know to ask at the marina and what time of day were they there?”
Sheri leaned back in her chair. “Dev, you think you can go ahead now and tell us what happened? I want to know everything, from the minute you got to the house, the calls, whatever you remember.”
Devon did the best she could, trying to remember every detail.
“They scared me shitless,” she said, “but I did the best I could not to let them see it.”
“Smart and with guts.” Sheri squeezed her hand. “We’ll see what we can find when we put out a description. Also, I’ll be checking around town to see if they’ve been asking about Graham. And do it without raising everyone’s curiosity more than it already is.”
“I suspect those two have been keeping a profile so low it’s practically nonexistent, though,” Avery told her. She looked at Devon. “The first thing I want Logan to do when he gets here is a complete security assessment, so he can call me with what we need for your new system. We’ll monitor it from the office. A breech will also send an alarm to Logan’s watch.”
“His watch?” Devon blinked. “It must be some watch.”
Avery smiled at her. “It is. Believe me.”
“This is just a nightmare.” Devon rubbed her forehead. “You talked to my dad’s friends, right? What did they have to say? They might know something, especially Cash Breeland. He was pretty tight with him.” She thought for a second. “Also Earl Flannery. And Roy Parker. He was pretty tight with all of them. I can’t think who else.”
“Spoke to all three,” Sheri assured her. “They were all just as shocked as you are.”
“God. You’d think someone would have a clue.”
“Roy said he seemed a little distracted at their card game last week, but other than that, nothing.”
Devon rubbed her face. She’d been fighting off reactions to everything, but her body was losing the battle. She ached as if she’d been in battle and her insides felt like jelly. She had to pull herself together.
Sheri touched her hand. “It’s okay to fall apart. Anyone who had a day like this would be hanging on by a thread.”
“I guess. It’s just not who I am.” Nor had it ever been. Not even when her mother died, or when her father backed away from their relationship for more than a year. She’d allowed herself the moment of grief, then pulled up her big girl pants and moved forward. She’d always been like that.
“Maybe, but right now you have to give yourself permission to let go.”
Easier said than done.
“If we just had some idea of the what and why here.” Devon braced her elbows on the table and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “Nothing seems to fit. An experienced sailor just doesn’t fall overboard. A high-profile business executive doesn’t just disappear. Men like my father don’t hang out with the kind of people who would run me off the road. God! I just wish I knew what the hell was going on.”
“And we’re going to find out,” Sheri promised her. “We don’t have to rely on just my small department, either. I can hit up the sheriff’s department for additional manpower. But Avery has offered to do anything we need, and I think for this I’m taking her up on it.”
Devon lifted an eyebrow. “Is that okay to do? Mix public and private like that?”
Avery grinned. “We do work for the United States government. I think we can handle Arrowhead Bay.”
They all knew Vigilance had the resources to tap into things that weren’t readily available to your typical police department.
Devon let out a long breath. “Thank you so much.” Not that she didn’t have the greatest admiration for Sheri, but Arrowhead Bay had just a six-person police force. The most difficult things they handled were speeding tourists and bar fights during football games. Surely for something like this they needed more help.
Avery looked over at her sister. “So I’m guessing first on your list is the cell phone?”
Sheri nodded. “You’ve got staff and equipment that is way above anything us ordinary mortals have. But time is critical here.”
“No problem.”
“Good. When we leave here, I’ll run it right over to you.” Avery got up to brew another cup of coffee for herself.
Devon was only half listening. She kept sliding glances toward the front door, tuned in for sounds of Logan’s arrival. Safe! There was that word again, along with secure. Grounded. She’d felt it from the moment he’d jogged over from his truck. All those things. How could she feel that about a man she’d just met? Hadn’t even known more than an hour?
And now she was going to be staying with him in this house, just the two of them. Her hormones seemed to be doing battle for first place with the little ball of fear in her stomach. Crazy, right? But just as inexplicable as everything else in this insane situation.
And then he was there, his presence filling the room.
“Muffins.” He placed a bag from the bakery on the table in front of Devon.
She inhaled the aroma of the fresh muffins, the scents of chocolate and cinnamon teasing at her nose even before she opened the bag. Surprisingly, she discovered she was hungry.
“Yum. That smells wonderful.”
“They cure almost anything,” Avery told her with a smile. “Thanks, Logan.”
* * * *
Logan smiled at his boss. “No problem.”
Then he took a hard look at Devon, seated at the table with her fingers wrapped around a steaming mug of what he assumed was coffee. She was still pale, and the tension surrounding her was so strong it almost vibrated in the air.
Back on the highway he’d been worried about her. For a few minutes, he was afraid she was going to fall apart. Now, however, she looked a little