A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(52)
No one else had been here, so she’d done all the scheduling for the next two weeks and caught up on a day’s worth of paperwork. She worked fairly normal hours, so what she’d finished this morning would have taken all day because of the numerous interruptions she would have had. Normally she craved the chaotic atmosphere of her restaurants. There was always a mini-crisis to be dealt with. Right now she just wanted to go home, curl up on the couch with ice cream, and forget about the outside world for a while.
Of course she wouldn’t be able to block out anything, not when her thoughts were consumed with Nathan and the pain and hurt that had radiated off him as he’d left last night. She laid herself bare and now he either forgave her or didn’t. It had taken her a long damn time to forgive herself—and on bad days she still struggled with guilt—so maybe she shouldn’t expect him to let go so easily. But that stupidly hopeful part of her had thought there was a chance he would. Hoped he would.
Sitting at her desk, she shook those thoughts off and scrolled through her phone to Joel Sinclair.
The detective answered on the third ring, his voice strained. “Hey, you know a girl named Tessa Hall?”
“Uh . . .” She paused, completely taken off guard. Alarm punched through her that a detective was asking about Tessa. “I was actually just calling you about her. What’s going on?”
“I’m at her house now. Got a call from a neighbor who was worried about her, so she used the key Tessa had given her. When she didn’t find anyone home, she called us.”
She could hear the sound of papers rustling in the background.
“I found a pay stub from Plátanos Maduros and a uniform shirt from there. Tell me what . . .” He trailed off before he let out an annoyed curse. “Let me call you back.” He disconnected before she could respond.
Screw that. Amelia scribbled down Tessa’s address on a sticky note and stood. She’d plug it into her GPS and head over there herself. She knew Sinclair would need to officially talk to her anyway, so she’d save him a trip.
The location of Tessa’s place was only about five miles away, but with traffic the drive took close to twenty minutes. By the time Amelia was pulling down Tessa’s street, Sinclair had called her back. “Hey, I’m almost to Tessa’s,” she said by way of greeting.
“Amelia—”
“I’m literally pulling down her street.”
He sighed. “Park at the curb across from her house. I’ll meet you there.”
As she steered down the street, she spotted Sinclair’s Explorer in the driveway. A marked police car was behind it. On the curb in front of Tessa’s house was a faded blue, older-model pickup truck. Some of the neighbors had come out of their houses and were standing on lawns. She noticed that almost everyone was in their fifties or older. She knew Tessa’s parents had died and she still lived in her childhood home while going to school.
Leaving her purse in her Jeep, Amelia shoved her keys and phone in her pants pocket and started across the street. As she rounded the old truck, she spotted a uniformed police officer talking to Jonas. Though she was surprised to see Jonas here, she didn’t have time to talk to him before Sinclair stepped out of the front door, his expression grim.
He strode across the front lawn, his long legs eating up the distance in seconds. “I’ve got another officer on the way here who’ll take your statement, and a forensics team to sweep the place.”
“You think she’s been kidnapped?” Amelia’s stomach twisted. Could it be by the same person or persons who’d taken so many other women?
He glanced around and kept his voice low when he spoke. “I don’t know much of anything at this point, and what I am about to tell you is all just between us. There are subtle signs of a break-in. Her back door looks as if it’s been picked, her bedroom is slightly disturbed, and we found heavy boot-print indents in her backyard. Could be nothing but a repair guy, but we’re going to look into everything. A lot of women have gone missing, and if she’s one of them we might have a jump on this case if we find physical evidence.”
She nodded. They’d only discovered that the other women were missing after a lot of time had passed. There’d been no way to really search for any physical evidence or anything that might help the police discover who had taken them. Amelia was afraid for Tessa. “Why’d her neighbor call?”
“Guess she hadn’t taken her garbage cans out to the curb yesterday even though her car’s parked in the carport. And she wasn’t answering her phone. She says that’s not like Tessa, that she’s very predictable, a friendly, sweet girl.”
Yeah, that definitely sounded like Tessa. Real fear clawed at Amelia. “She didn’t show up for work Sunday evening or this morning.” Guilt threaded through her. She should have called Sinclair yesterday. One phone call could have had him looking into this sooner.
Sinclair pulled out a pad and started writing. “That’s good info. It’ll help establish a timeline of her movements. You know him well?” Sinclair jerked a chin in the direction of Jonas but kept scribbling.
She automatically glanced at her employee. Tall, a little lanky, he was a nice kid. “He works for me. He’s a good kid as far as I know. Attends the University of Miami, works part-time, has never been late. You probably already know this, but I just heard from some staff that he and Tessa are semi-dating.”