Mine To Protect (Mine #6)(29)

Without another word, Victor turned away from her. He opened the door. Held that door while she marched out.

He didn’t speak to her again, not until they were inside the elevator and heading down to the lobby. Then Victor said, “Tom was a damn fool.”

Her breath left her in a fast gasp.

“Any man in his right mind would have chosen you…You are enough. You are more than enough.” His hands fisted at his sides. “He should have known you were everything.”

The ache in her chest eased, just a little bit. The ache eased, but the fear—her new companion—stayed.

***

Getting into Michelle Lane’s apartment wasn’t hard. It also wasn’t exactly a legal entrance or search, but Victor figured desperate times…

Desperate times mean I break more rules for Zoe.

When they’d been in Drake’s hotel and tears had glistened in Zoe’s eyes as she’d said that she hadn’t been enough, when he’d heard the pain in her voice…I wanted to hunt down Xavier Thomas Winters and beat the guy’s ass.

Only Victor was supposed to be the good guy. The guy who didn’t use his fists to get some much needed vengeance for Zoe.

“It looks as if she hasn’t been here in weeks,” Zoe said, spinning around in the middle of the little den. “There’s dust everywhere. Michelle is a neat freak. Like, obsessively neat. No way would she be letting the place get this way if she’d been here recently.”

Not a surprise. They’d already known the woman had vanished from the radar, but Victor had wanted to search Michelle’s place just in case there might have been some clues there. Signs of a struggle. Notes about travel plans…clothes that were packed indicating she’d left willingly.

But…

There’s nothing. No broken furniture. No overturned chairs. All of her clothes are still hanging in the closet, precisely in place.

In fact, other than the dust, the whole place was…perfect. Too perfect.

He slowly turned around, studying all the walls. No photos. He opened a few drawers. Some were bare. Some had only the fewest of items—a screwdriver, matches. “Your friend…” he murmured. “She’s not exactly the sentimental type, is she?”

“What do you mean?”

He shut the drawer he’d opened. “No family pics. No mementos from trips.”

Zoe glanced at the walls. The empty walls. Then back at him. She rubbed her forehead. “I guess I never noticed. Is that…odd? That she doesn’t have things like that?”

It was certainly interesting.

“I never had them,” she murmured, rubbing her head a bit harder. “After my mom…died, it wasn’t like I wanted to put up pictures of Luther. And I don’t have any other family members.”

Fuck, yeah, baby, you do. Guilt twisted in his gut.

“I guess I never noticed Michelle didn’t have pictures because I didn’t, either. Seemed normal to me.” Her hand fell to her side. “She didn’t talk about her family to me, either. She didn’t ask me about mine and I didn’t ask about hers. I was just—glad to not have to lie to someone new, I guess.” She swallowed. “I should have asked. If I’d known more about her family, I could have contacted them. Could have found out if—”

“No next of kin was listed on her rental application.”

“What?”

He rolled his shoulders back. “I did some digging a while back when you first went looking for her. I got access to her rental application.” He’d pulled—or rather, yanked hard—on some strings he had. “She didn’t have a next of kin listed. It seems that her parents died when she was younger.”

“So we’re the only ones looking for her?”

Maybe…

He headed toward the refrigerator. He opened it, expecting to have the scent of old milk hit him. Food gone bad. But—

The fridge was empty.

His head tilted. Michelle’s clothes were still in her closet, her apartment—other than the dust—was completely clean. He shut the fridge door and strode toward her garbage can.

Empty. Very interesting. “She left willingly.”

“What?” Zoe’s voice rose, almost breaking. “How do you know that?”

He faced her. “Because your neat freak friend didn’t want the food going bad in her fridge. She took it all out. Didn’t just toss it in her garbage but probably walked it down to the dumpster.”

Her gaze darted to the fridge. “Maybe someone else did that…maybe the person who took her—”

“Damn unlikely. The abductor would just be focused on cleaning up any obvious signs of a struggle. He wouldn’t give a shit about milk congealing in the fridge.”

Excitement flashed on her face. “Michelle would care about that. It would drive her crazy.”

“That’s why she got rid of it. She knew she wasn’t coming back here for a while. She ditched the food, emptied out her garbage, and just left the things that didn’t matter.”

Now Zoe surged toward him. “Her clothes are here. Are you really saying those don’t matter?”

Actually…maybe.

“There are other places we need to visit.” She nodded decisively. “A club off the strip. A quiet place with lots of dark corners. Michelle and I met up there plenty of times because it was a place where we could both vanish.”