All Jacked Up (Rough Riders #8)(79)
Confessing Martine’s degrading remarks would be bad enough. But hearing platitudes about how she shouldn’t let Martine’s insecurities affect her would be much worse.
Martine’s words had cut to the bone. Maybe they were just nasty barbs, but barbs stung whether the connection with them was intentional or accidental.
All Keely wanted was to reconnect with herself. To remember who she was.
On autopilot, she drove to the refuge she’d fled to the years she’d lived in Denver. She’d always found herself here. But before she climbed out of her truck, she curled up in the bench seat and cried.
Chapter Eighteen
Jack had tuned out the speaker’s drone an hour ago.
About the last time he’d seen Keely.
And whose fault is that?
His. He’d been busy networking and hadn’t realized Keely had gotten stuck with the coven at Martine’s table until the dinner was over.
His gaze zeroed in on her empty chair again. Where the hell could she have gone?
Clapping echoed as the speech finally ended and he distractedly joined in. Immediately Jack was on his feet. When his colleagues stopped him to talk, he couldn’t very well walk away, since he’d attended the conference to work. By the time he’d made it out of the banquet room, another twenty minutes had passed.
And still no sign of Keely.
Jack was starting to get worried.
“Jack?”
He turned as Gina Arguello approached him. When Jack lived in Chicago, he’d collaborated with Gina’s husband Donnie on a couple of projects and he’d been to their house for the occasional barbecue.
“Gina. Nice to see you. How are the kids?”
“Getting big and ornery.” She hesitated and twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “I’m happy to see you here. I know the last couple years were rough on you.”
“Brutal. But things are looking up. Was there something you needed?”
“Ah. Well, I don’t know if it’s my place to say this or not, but I accidentally overheard a conversation between your fiancée and…Martine.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
An odd feeling of foreboding replaced any sense of relief. “Where was Keely when you heard it?
Because I’ve been looking for her.”
Gina blushed. “In the lady’s room. I’m pregnant and I wasn’t feeling well after dinner so I went to the restroom. I was about to come out of the last stall when I heard Martine start in on her.”
Shit. “What did she say?”
“Martine went off on this tirade about you. Then she started belittling Keely. It was vicious. If I thought I’d felt nauseous before, it was worse by the time Martine finished with her.”
Jack forced himself to stay calm. “Tell me all of it.” When Gina finished, Jack stared at her in absolute horror.
“I know I should’ve jumped in and put a stop to it, but I don’t want to tangle with Martine. Ever.
Donnie needs the consulting work with Baxter, especially with another kid on the way. I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to apologize. There’s no way to stop the shit that Martine spews. Do you know where Keely went after Martine left?”
Gina shook her head. “I planned on talking to her and telling her Martine was full of lies, but when I left the stall, Keely wasn’t around.”
He squeezed Gina’s arm. “Thank you, Gina.”
His gut was tied in a mass of knots.
Stay calm.
As he walked to the elevator, Jack dug out his cell phone and called Keely. Automatically the message kicked over to her voice mail.
Stay calm.
He drummed his fingers on the handrail as the elevator whirred up to his floor.
Stay calm.
Jack even managed not to take the length of the hallway at a dead run.
Stay calm.
He inserted his key card and called out, “Keely?”
No answer.
When he saw her key card on the dresser but no suitcase, all calmness evaporated.
She was gone.
“Goddammit straight to f*cking hell, Keely McKay. Where the hell did you go?”
Jack called her cell phone again. He left another message.
Over the next hour, Jack called her cell phone twenty-seven times. He called her home phone twenty-nine times.
After nearly wearing holes in his shoes from pacing, he called information in Sundance. His heart raced as the phone rang. An irritated female voice snapped, “You’d better have a good reason for calling me this late, whoever you are.”
“AJ. It’s Jack.”
She went on alert so fast he felt her panic through the phone lines. “What happened?”
“Keely’s gone. She’s not answering her cell phone and I’m going crazy.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing! I swear. We were at a business banquet, we got separated at dinner and evidently an old…girlfriend of mine said some upsetting things. Keely left without a word to me. I only know that much because a woman overheard their conversation.”