I jog up the basement stairs and close the door firmly behind me.

Dejected and frustrated, I slump against the wall. Daryl steps out of my office and watches me with dark, unreadable eyes. “So,” he says in his deep, sub bass voice.

“She’s gone.” Even as I say the words, I can’t wrap my mind around them. Sure, this is a big house, but it’s not a mansion or anything like that.

Daryl slowly nods. “Yeah, I kind of got that message between the second and third time you insisted we search the house.”

I cut him a nasty glare, which he ignores as he walks into the kitchen and pulls the orange juice out of the fridge. “Who is she?”

“Ella. Ella Collins.” I run my hands through my hair and try to come up with a plan, some sort of strategy to track her down, but nothing comes to mind.

“Good to know, but I wasn’t talking ‘bout her name.” Daryl digs a clean glass out of the dishwasher and fills it with juice. “I meant who is she to you?”

“Huh?”

Daryl rolls his eyes. “I know you ain’t no priest, but in all the years I’ve known you, this is the first time I’ve come face to face with a woman. Based on that, I’ve got to assume she’s more than just a casual, good-time fuck. So, who is she?”

I stare at the plate of cold bacon still sitting on the countertop. Bending, I slide open the warming drawer at the bottom of my stove and remove the two plates I tucked inside just before Ella came into the kitchen and distracted me.

Each plate contains a Denver omelet. When I put them in the drawer, they’d been light and a brilliant shade of yellow. Now they’re just burnt and dried up. Grimacing, I toss them, plates and all, into the trash.

Once again, Ella has taken off rather than share breakfast with me. I glance down at the mess in the trash can. Maybe it’s not something I’ve done; maybe she just really hates omelets.

“She’s Ella.” I’m starting to feel a bit like a broken record. “Florida Ella.”

Daryl’s head snaps around so fast he stumbles. Wide-eyed, he stares at me. “Holy shit. You mean THE Florida Ella? The one who walked away without so much as telling you her last name? The chick you’ve been carrying a torch for since we were in college?”

Daryl is one of the few people in the world who knows about my magical night with Ella. And the only reason he knows is because in the months following her leaving me, he was the one who had to scrape my drunken ass off a variety of barstools and shuttle me back home, where he was diligent about sobering me up.

“That’s the one.”

“Damn!” Daryl emits a low whistle. “I didn’t think she was real, man. After listening to you mope about her for a few years, I figured she was some sort of drunken hallucination. I don’t know what’s more amazing. That she exists at all, or that you managed to hook up with her again.” His brow furrows. “How did you find her?”

“She called me.”

“She called you,” Daryl repeats, incredulous. “Like out of the blue?”

“Sort of. She works for a call center. Apparently, they got hold of my number somehow, and the night before last, she called me. I recognized her voice right off the bat.”

“Dude.” Daryl drags the word out. “’That’s freaking amazing. I mean, a Vegas bookie wouldn’t even touch those kinds of odds. So, then what did you do?” Here’s the thing about Daryl: he looks like this big, black badass, but there’s a romantic soul hidden behind the badge, the gun, and the mountain of muscle.

I quickly recount how she hung up on me and how I’d used my hacking skills to figure out where she worked and got into the building on the pretense of being an interested investor.

“Sneaky,” Daryl says, conveniently ignoring the fact that when I obtained the information, I broke – at least bended – group and it a few Federal laws, laws he’s supposed to be duty bound to enforce. That’s one of things I love about the guy. He knows when to let a few felonies slide. “I like it.”

“I liked it better when she was here,” I mutter darkly. I drag my fingers through my hair. “What the hell made her bolt?”

“You probably said something to piss her off,” Daryl supplies, “or you started blabbing on and on about computers. Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done that, even though I keep telling you, chicks don’t dig on computer shit the way you do.”

“I didn’t say anything about computers,” I tell him darkly. “And even if I had, Ella wouldn’t have cared. She’s an even better computer geek than I am. She majored in computer sciences. MIT. In addition to normal computer stuff, she also told me she was a pretty good hacker.”

Funny, that was one of those things I’d forgotten. We’d talked about so many things. Now I recall the pretty blush that had warmed her skin, and how she’d nearly tripped over her tongue in her haste to assure me that she’d never created a super virus or hacked into anything that would give the government pause.

Right after that, she’d slipped her hand into my swimming trunks and stroked my dick, at which point my ability to carry on a conversation had fled. That’s probably why I’d forgotten about that part of the conversation until right now. The pleasure of her touch had blown my synapses and caused me to lose my memory of what had just transpired.

“No shit?” Daryl whistles appreciatively. “Guess she really is your soul mate. She as good as you?”

“Better.” I slant him a look and decide to divulge something I’ve never told him. “Back when I first met her, your people were head hunting her.”

“My people?” Daryl’s eyes narrow into dangerous slits and I suddenly realize how my words probably sound to him. Having grown up on the outskirts of Natchez, Mississippi, Daryl is sensitive when it comes to comments about race. Since it rarely comes up between us, I sometimes forget that about him.

“The FBI,” I hurriedly clarify.

Now shock widens Daryl’s eyes and brightens his entire expression. “You’re fucking with me.”

I shake my head. “Them and a few other three-letter agencies. That’s why I thought I couldn’t find her. That once she’d agreed to work for the government, that she’d been put into some sort of deep undercover.” The idea had been central to more than a few of the nighttime fantasies I’d indulged in over the years.

I move to stand by the window and stare out it at the city beyond. Ella is somewhere on the other side of the glass and, unlike the last time, when I waited too long to start searching for her this time I’m going to find her, come hell or high water, before the sun set on this day.

“It’s Wednesday, man. She probably took off because she remembered she has to work today. Some of us don’t have the luxury of staying at home, making computer games and calling it work. Some of us have to punch a clock.”

Daryl is the only person who dares call the software I designed and sold to the military ‘games’.

“I thought of that and called Jerry at Abutilon. That’s her boss. After he got done trying to find out whether I’d decided to invest, he told me today is Ella’s scheduled day off. If I’m going to catch her there, I’ll have to wait to tomorrow.” There’s no way in hell I’m waiting that long. I’ve spent the past seven years occupying a lonely bed, dreaming of Ella. Now that I’ve found her, I have no intention of sleeping alone ever again.

Daryl’s head snaps up and his gaze clashes with mine. “Did you say Abutilon?” His voice is void of intonation.

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Your computer genius of a girlfriend works for Abutilon?” He’s gone completely stone faced, which always makes me uncomfortable. I don’t get how a guy who loves life and laughing as much as Daryl does can go from being one of the most expressive guys I know to looking like his face would crack if he so much as thinks about smiling. Always makes me wonder exactly what happens to recruits while they’re at Quantico.

I nod.

“And it’s a call center?”

“Yeah. They have—” I think about it a minute, trying to recall yesterday’s conversation. It’s not easy since I was more interested in Ella than in the actual company. “I think a total of six different branches. In addition to Chicago, they have a branch in Columbus and New York City, but I can’t remember the other places. The manager said they handle a variety of different services for different companies. Including cold sales call, some collection work, and straight up promotional stuff. It was pretty diverse, though it all revolved around making calls. I’m glad I don’t work there. It’s a depressing place.”

Daryl drags his cell phone out of his pocket. “Sorry, man. I’d like to stick around, help you solve the mystery of your elusive girlfriend, but I’ve got to check something out right away.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before the door slams closed behind him.

I stare at my side of the door and try to wrap my brain around what just happened. First Ella takes off and now my best friend, a guy who is practically a picture-perfect definition of unflappable. Based on recent events, I have to assume that there’s something wrong with me.

I tuck my nose inside the collar of my shirt, trying to determine if I smell of BO or something equally as noxious which is driving the most important people in my life away. My cell phone springs to life before I form a conclusion.

I glance at the screen. It’s not a number I recognize. Sighing, I press the answer button and brace myself for a sales call.

“Hello,” I say in a sharp tone.

“Jason?” It’s Ella. My heart kicks into overdrive. Her reaching out to me, that’s a good sign, right? It means I didn’t do anything so incredibly stupid that it drove her away forever.

There’s absolutely no way I’m going to give her a chance to tell me that it’s over forever. Before she even has a chance to take a breath and launch into an explanation for why she called, I start talking. I barely think about my words before they tumble out of my mouth. I don’t care that I’m all but begging her to give me a chance. There’s no way I’m going to let her tell me it’s over.

“Ella, what happened? Why did you take off like that? If I did something wrong, just tell me and I’ll fi-”

“Jason, shut up.”

Her tone more than her words that silences me. Under the annoyance in her voice, I hear a great deal of strain. Something is seriously wrong. My muscles tense and my mind whirls, looking for a solution to a problem I know nothing about. Talk about jumping the gun.

On the other end of the phone line, Ella takes a deep, bracing breath. My shoulders tense, waiting to hear the worse.

“Look,” she says, “I have something I need to tell you, and I can’t do it over the phone, though God knows I wish I could. Come to Brooks Easy Living Building. I’m in apartment 6C on the third floor. And I need you to get here as quickly as you can.”

“What is this about? Are you in some kind of trouble? An accident, maybe?” A picture of her sitting in the emergency room, covered in blood because she’d been, I don’t know, mugged or hit by a car, flashes through my imagination. I nearly drop the phone. “Are you okay?”

As soon as the question falls from my mouth, I hold my breath, both dreading and needing her answer.

“I’m fine. I just need to talk to you. Get here as quickly as you can. Before I chicken out.”

She doesn’t wait for my response before disconnecting the phone.