Damage Control

“Then come back to me.”

“I hope I can one day. Good-bye, Shane.” The line goes dead.

Cursing, I redial the number she’d called me on only to have it go direct to a voice mail that hasn’t even been set up. That damn second cell I’d seen her with before, which obviously wasn’t about a lost phone she’d replaced, but her brother and her secrets. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I don’t believe she would have called me if she believed there was any way we could find her at this point. She’s gone and I may never see her again. Worse, I let it happen. I dial Seth only to have his voice mail pick up too. I text him with the number Emily called me on and then try to call him again, with the same empty results.

Shoving my cell phone into my pocket, I lean on the wall, squeezing my eyes shut, my face lifted to the ceiling, and I replay every detail of the conversation I just had with her. No names. No locations. She was cautious, planned, and I weigh that realization, waiting for a sense of being played. But what reason would she have for doing that when she’s already gone? Unless she’s not? Unless she’s still here and not sure she’s getting away?

A knock sounds, and hoping for answers, I push off the wall, closing the small space between me and the door. I open it to find Seth. “I gave the number you texted me to Nick and his team.”

“In other words,” I say, not moving from the doorway, “you don’t have her.”

“There is no way she’s left the hotel. We have every exit covered.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“Nick—”

“Is charging us a small fortune to make sure we know what we need to know, when we need to know it, which clearly we do not.”

His phone beeps with another message, and he reaches for it, while I turn away and start walking, leaving him to come or go, preferably go and find Emily. Rounding the corner, I bring the living area wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows into view, the memories of making love to Emily on the balcony just beyond the glass ripping through me. I head toward the bamboo minibar to the right of the glass doors, passing behind the leather furnishings I’d inherited from my father when I took over this place. The idea that this is where he used to take his “other” women does nothing to help my mood. I’m just pulling the top off a decanter of stout Scottish whiskey, when I decide I need all-new everything. Preferably, I think as I fill my glass, furniture picked out with me by the woman who was sharing my bed until about an hour ago.

“What did Emily say when she called?”

At the sound of Seth’s voice behind me, I down the contents of the glass and face him, hands on my hips, quickly giving him the rundown. By the time I’ve finished, he’s standing in front of me, his arms folded over his chest, his look skeptical.

“No names,” he says. “No location. No proof anything she said is valid, but if she’s on the radar of an international hacking operation, we need to know who that is, in case they know who we are.”

“We can handle them,” I say. “She can’t. But if we assume she is on their radar and we are too, we’d be in a better position if we knew where she was right now.”

“She’s in this hotel,” he bites out at the same moment his cell phone beeps with a text. He digs it from his pocket, glancing at it, and then me. “Nick needs to see me downstairs.”

“I smell a problem,” I say dryly.

He shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Look, man. I’m as good at my job as you are in the courtroom, and you know it or you wouldn’t have brought me with you from New York. I hired Nick because he’s that good too. And I’m also your friend, which is why I know this woman sideswiped you. One minute you didn’t give a shit about anyone. The next she was under your skin.”

“And your point is?”

“Who we fuck can best fuck us. If she got out of here with the kind of coverage we have on her, she has skills that scream more than meets the eye, or matches her story.”

“Being smart does not make her the enemy.”

“But you have enemies, Shane, and not just your family. The Martina cartel will know that you stand between them and control of Brandon Enterprises.”

“Points all well taken,” I say. “Go find her.”

“I will,” he assures me. “Here or elsewhere.” He turns and starts walking.

I stare after him, repeating his words in my head: Who we fuck can best fuck us. They’re followed by those of my mother not so long ago, in reference to Emily: Once someone is in your bed, they’re dangerously close to you. Watch your back with that woman. Again, I wait for doubt to rush over me. Instead there is a hole inside me that I can almost picture growing bigger, and in it are my father, and Emily. I need a favor, she’d said. It hits me then that Emily had no time to clean up her apartment. There might be information about her or her brother there. I’m also the person most likely to spot her on the street. Intending to change into running gear and head out by foot, I start walking, and I don’t stop until I’m on the second level and in my dark bedroom. That’s when I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of the light burning in the closet. The same light I always turn off.

The idea that Emily actually came here is ridiculous, but I find myself crossing to the closet and stopping in the doorway, the scent of sweet, floral perfume teasing my nostrils. She was here, and my gaze lands hard on a drawer that isn’t quite shut. I cross to it and squat down, pulling it open, to reveal three of the four beanie hats I use for running. Holy fuck. She changed clothes. I abandon the closet and cross the bedroom, entering the bathroom to flip on the light, the same sweet scent touching my nose. I grab my phone from my pocket, punching in the auto-dial for Seth as I squat next to the bag by the cabinet and find the clothes she’d been wearing.