“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Ashley said. “Where’s Mama?”
I glanced up distractedly from my phone. Kelly’s was still pinging at the studio, but she wasn’t answering.
“No luck?” Branna asked by my side.
I shook my head. A sense of foreboding replaced the anticipation of seeing my wife. “Why don’t you let the girls eat?”
“I want to eat with Mama.” Ashley’s lower lip quivered. “Where is she?”
“She’s still at work, baby girl,” I told her. “She’s probably stuck again.”
“Let’s eat,” Whit told her sister, then she glanced at me and winked. Everyone in here knew my youngest daughter turned into a little monster when she was hungry. And after her daddy-of-the-year fed her all those waffles drowned in maple syrup, I was only collecting the spoils.
“Come on, girls.” Branna ushered them to the dining room.
I glanced over to where the door to the garage opened, but it was only Cillian coming in with groceries. “Where’s Kelly? Her car isn’t here yet, and it’s almost seven.”
“I’ve called her a couple of times,” I said and nodded to the bags in his hand. “Need help?”
“Nope, this is all of it. Not like her to not give a heads up.” Kelly’s grandfather lowered his load on the center island. Branna returned to the kitchen and started browsing through the bags. “The girls started eating. Kelly can catch up later. Sometimes the production vans run behind schedule.”
“She would have called.” Cillian repeated his earlier statement.
Nana shrugged. “She usually calls, but I recall a time or two when she was delayed for a couple of hours and couldn’t let me know. Remember this production is in a time crunch. She’s probably in last minute meetings.”
I tapped the phone on the table. It wasn’t unusually late, but it was two hours past when she said she would be here.
I swiped another number. I needed eyes on her.
“Yo, man,” Bristow answered. “What’s up?”
“Are you sober?”
He chuckled. “Had a beer. About to start on the heavy stuff, what’s going on?”
I excused myself from Kelly’s grandparents and headed to the backyard. “I need a favor. Check security feeds at the studio and see if Kelly’s car’s still there.”
“Ooohkay,” Bristow responded but there was laughter in his voice.
Fucker.
“She was supposed to be here two hours ago and she hasn’t responded to my calls or texts. It could be she’s busy, but I—”
“Say no more.” I could hear him move around and get settled. Bristow was a retired SEAL like I was and he was the comms expert on the team. “Howard Productions, right?”
“Yup.”
“Give me a few. I’m still hooked in with LAPD access, so shouldn’t take too long.”
I paced the backyard. “Heard anything new on Tom?”
“Yes. I’m chasing a lead on the rival corporation of the De Lucci-owned resort … hmm … this is strange.”
I stopped pacing. “What’s strange?”
“No … I have the correct address and network …”
“What’s going on?”
“Surveillance is dead. The feed is blank.”
“What?” I was already heading back into the house. “I have a bad feeling about this. Can you see if her car is still there?” I sent him the information to access the StarLink car security.
After a few minutes, Bristow said, “It is.”
“I’m heading there.” The bad feeling had just turned into full-blown concern.
“Coming with.”
I wasn’t going to turn down any help I could get. “Thanks. Meet you there.”
“Copy that.”
I ended the call and contemplated what to tell my girls without worrying them. I hated to lie, but not knowing the real situation, I had to err on the side of not upsetting them.
“Everything all right?” Branna asked.
“I’m going to check on Kelly.”
“Need company?” Cillian asked.
“I’d rather you stay with the girls.”
“What if she’s on her way home, and you pass each other?”
“Her car is still there.”
“Oh.” Branna narrowed her eyes at me. “Is there something you’re not telling me, son?”
“Nothing concrete. Just not like Kelly to not call.” Especially when she knew how important our talk was going to be.
I returned to the dining room. Whit was happily tearing the meat from a chicken leg while Ash was pouting at her plate.
“What’s the matter, baby girl?”
“I want Mama.”
“She’ll be home soon,” Whit told her sister. “You better eat that up, or she’ll remove the crispy skin, and you’ll be left with breast meat.”
“I like breast meat,” Ash said, but her lips turned down. “But I do like crispy skin.”
Whit winked at me, but the smile died. I struggled to put back a neutral face. “I’m going to go get her.”
“What’s wrong? Did she finally call? Did she have car trouble?”
The inquisitiveness of my youngest gave me the perfect evasive response. “Something like that.”
I kissed the top of their heads. “Don’t give Nana and Gramps any trouble while I’m gone, okay? And Ash, eat the chicken and the peas, or you’re not getting more waffles tomorrow.”
My youngest emitted a resigned sigh.
I didn’t linger and grabbed the keys, hellbent on finding out what was going on with Kelly.
Thirty minutes later, I arrived to my worst nightmare. Police lights were flashing right in front of the studio and the area was cordoned off.
I squeezed my Escalade into a tight spot, slammed out of the vehicle, and jogged to the entrance. Bristow was rapidly walking my way, and we met at the perimeter of the police line.
“You know what the fuck is going on?” I asked. “Anything on the police scanner?”
“Yes. One of the production vans came back to pick up something and found the guard unconscious behind the desk. They thought it was a medical issue, but when he came around, he said he was tased.”
“Where’s the guard now?”
Bristow nodded to an ambulance. Walking over to the emergency vehicle, someone was already asking questions—a detective of the West Hollywood bureau probably—while the EMT worked on the guard. .
“Have you gotten a hold of Kelso or Gabby?” I asked Bristow.
“Left them messages.”
His phone pinged. “Kelso is on his way.”
I tried to beat back the panic rising inside me, the urgent need to run in there. With no “in” with the scene’s law enforcements, it was a waste of time, and the person who had the most answers was in front of me.
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” I heard the detective ask.
“I’m sorry, I—” The guard Freddy saw and recognized me. “Mr. James.”
“What happened?” I cut between the detective and the guard.
“Excuse me, who are you?”
“I’m Kelly James’ husband,” I told the detective. “She was working.”
“Nobody else is inside,” the detective said.
Freddy shook his head. “Before I got tased, she was still on the premises. I didn’t see anything else.”
“Surveillance?” I asked.
“We’re getting a warrant for that now,” the detective told us.
“Kelly’s phone is inside,” I said.
“That’s going to be evidence.”
“Are her things in there?”
“Sir,” the detective said in exasperation. “I know you’re worried about your wife. But let me wrap up here and we will interview you at length.”
“You don’t need to interview me,” I snarled. “I need to be in there. See what happened. My partner and I have worked for the LAPD before.”
The detective squinted his eyes at me. “Even so, I’m afraid that’s not possible. It’ll be my ass on the line if you screw up our crime scene.”
I spun away from the man to hide my frustration. Where the fuck was Kelso?
“That was a Hail Mary request,” Bristow said.
I knew better than to argue and lose my shit and get ejected from the premises, but the dread in my gut had escalated into something close to terror.
Someone took Kelly.
“Kelso’s here,” Bristow said. “He was closer than I thought. Let’s see if he could pull any strings and get us inside.”
After arguing with the detective-in-charge of the case, our friend managed to get us into the studio with the promise not to disturb the crime scene.
I wanted to snarl and snap, but like everyone else, they were just doing their jobs. I stalked ahead while Bristow updated Kelso on what he’d found regarding the Roth case. If he in any way put my wife in the crosshairs of the people after him, I was going to hunt him down, and there was no telling what I would do when I found him. This could be one of those cases where I was willing to murder a person who got my wife hurt.
The acid scalding my gut intensified when we entered the studio. My eyes went to Kelly’s purse on the floor and its scattered contents. Her makeup case was sitting in the middle of an aisle.
Kelso flashed his badge at the patrol officer who approached us.
“Detective Burns radioed and gave the go ahead to share information,” the officer said.
“What you got?” Kelso asked.
“There are signs of a struggle …”
The cop looked at us before returning his attention to Kelso. “We found a bullet casing.”
“Fuck …” It was as though my spinal cord snapped, and I hunched down to rest my palms on my knees. My breathing serrated. Bristow’s hand on my shoulder did nothing to quell the warring rage and fear in my heart.
“His wife is Kelly James,” Kelso explained my reaction to the officer.
“Shit, man, you should have warned me.”
That made me straighten up. Now was not the time to go pussy. Kelly needed the SEAL and mercenary to find her, not the worried husband.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Was there any blood?” It was like a string of tacks passing through my throat to get that out.
“No. No blood. And we haven’t identified the spot where he fired yet. Still waiting for a warrant on surveillance to see what happened here.”
“Do you mind if we look around?” Kelso asked.
“Not at all.”
“Bristow,” I murmured out of the corner of my mouth.
“Got it.”
We approached the scene where all the struggle happened. “He made her get her phone, but then left it.”
“This has got to have something to do with Roth,” Kelso said.
Bristow casually lowered his messenger bag beside Kelly’s phone that was left on the worktable.
He was cloning the device. I had an app installed on it for cases like this but hadn’t activated it. The initial activation had to be a close proximity thing.
I fucking hoped it was going to work.
A few minutes later, Bristow gave me the thumbs up.
I had a feeling we stood a better chance of finding Kelly on our own without the red tape of waiting for a warrant.
