Being Me (Inside Out #2)(47)

Blake snorts. “Once we have offices. He’s working from home until the building gets the construction done, thus the lunch meeting. I’ll be glad to get back to New York and out of his living room.”

My brow furrows. I’m concerned that they’re not more established here, and Chris seems to read my thoughts as we all sit down. “Walker Security is not only one of the best in the business, but Kelvin is a former FBI agent out of the San Francisco office.”

“I was ATF,” Blake adds. “My brother Luke is a former SEAL. My brother Royce is former FBI. The list goes on.” He cuts Chris a quick look. “Your man got us the journals, by the way.”

I’m impressed and relieved. Chris leans back and drapes his arm over my chair. “Jacob’s a good man.”

“I noticed,” Kelvin comments. “I need a man like him.”

“Stay away,” Chris warns. “I like my building more with him on the job.”

Kelvin looks encouraged. “That he’s impressed you only makes me want him more.”

“Have you found out anything about Rebecca?” I interject, eager to find out what they have to share.

The waitress appears and kills my chance for immediate answers. Chris opens his menu. “We’d better order. We’re going to be cutting it close for our flight.”

With effort I focus on the menu and order my first choice everywhere: pasta. The men all order burgers.

After the waitress leaves Blake picks up the conversation again. “About Rebecca. We tracked down the mysterious new boyfriend in New York. He said they took a trip to the Caribbean and they were going to travel to Greece next but she had a change of heart and wanted to come home early. We checked out his story. She flew out with him and came back alone.”

An icy chill slides down my spine. “She came back here?”

Kelvin gives a decisive nod. “Six weeks ago.”

I am sick to my stomach all over again. “She never got her things out of storage. She never came back to work. So where is she?”

“We don’t know,” Kelvin confirms, “and there’s no record of her leaving by any means of public transportation.”

“We also checked car rentals and found no record,” Blake adds, buttering some bread. “And she didn’t own a car for us to track down.”

Guilt twists me in knots. I sensed Rebecca was in trouble. I should have trusted my instincts and pushed harder for answers sooner. “Where does that leave us?” I ask, and I can’t keep the urgency from my voice. “The police?”

Blake sighs heavily. “This is tricky. We have enough to support a missing person’s report, but she’s an adult who has the right to come and go as she pleases.”

“And she told everyone she was leaving town,” I say.

Blake nods. “Exactly. It’s hard to get attention to these types of cases.”

Kelvin slides his silverware out of his way and sets a folder on the table. “We also don’t want the police asking questions that could trigger someone to hide evidence we might find otherwise.”

Evidence? I straighten. They are clearly are thinking crime, too.

Kelvin continues, “At least right now, we think a missing person’s report is a bad move.”

“You can trust these guys, baby,” Chris assures me, his finger lightly caressing my shoulder. “They know what they are doing.”

“I do,” I assure him and the entire table, “and I understand the view on the missing person’s report. I just don’t like the direction this seems to be headed or the things it’s making me think might have happened to Rebecca.”

Blake’s lips tighten. “Believe me, none of us do.”

“Which brings me to Sara’s involvement,” Chris says. “Anything new on the storage unit incident?”

Kelvin flips open the folder. “We lucked out and got our hands on some interesting footage from a camera at a nearby business.” He pulls out a photograph, setting it in the center of the table. “This guy entered the building after Sara and exited about ten minutes after she left.”

I suck in a breath. “That’s the creepy attendant I met.”

“He’s not an employee of the storage facility,” Kelvin informs me. “He’s a lowlife PI named Greg Garrison. He was hired by someone to find the journals.”

“Who?” Chris asks sharply.

“He says he doesn’t know,” Blake supplies. “Blind cash by wire and e-mailed instructions from an untraceable location.”

I hug myself and shiver. I was right. I wasn’t alone in the darkness.

Chris takes my hand and squeezes. “You okay?”

“I am,” I reply bleakly. “I’m not so sure about Rebecca, though.” My attention flicks between Kelvin and Blake. “There are no names in the journals. I’ve read them all.”

“Yet someone wants them badly enough to hire Greg,” Blake said. “That means we need to dig for why, and use their resources to look for things we might all miss.”

“Exactly,” Kelvin agrees. “And keep in mind that there could be more journals. We’d like to dig around in the storage unit.”

“We’ll give you the combination before we leave,” Chris says.