Had she returned it? I tapped my new cane on the step a few times. No. No, she hadn’t. “Frick, feck, frog!” I groused, turning reluctantly around to go back into the house. Dutch was gathering up a few files before he headed to the office, and I caught him looking up at me when I came back in, but I lifted my chin, averted my eyes from him, and headed straight to the house phone in the kitchen. Picking it up, I was about to dial when I realized I had no idea what Candice’s number was. Whenever I needed to call her I just looked her name up in my iPhone’s contacts list.
“Goddammit!” I growled, slamming the phone back down on the charger. (Swearing doesn’t count when you’re furious, just had a fight with your fiancé, forgot that your car’s not in the driveway, realize your sister’s stolen your phone, and can’t remember your best friend’s number.)
Dutch pretended to ignore me and continued to mess with his files.
I glared hard at him. The last thing I wanted to do was ask him for a favor, but unless I wanted to miss my appointments for the day and irritate five new clients, I’d need his phone to call Candice. You’d think that was a no-brainer, but I still thought about it for a good two minutes before I cleared my throat and said, “Dutch?”
“I’m late for work, Abby,” he replied evenly.
I could feel my brow lower to the danger zone, but I kept my own voice calm and collected. “I need your phone to look up Candice’s number.”
“Where’s your phone?”
I took a deep (deeeeeeeeeeep) cleansing breath and let it out nice and slow (slooooooooow) before answering him. “Cat has it.”
Dutch stopped messing with his files and lifted steely eyes to me. We had ourselves a little staring contest for a few beats before he walked over to the dining room table and picked up the box with my wedding present, or as I liked to call it, “argument subject zero,” as it’d been the thing that’d started our fight in the first place.
Laying the box on the counter in front of me, Dutch said, “You can have Candice’s number if you promise to take your gun to the shooting range to practice.”
“I promise,” I said quickly. The next time I was at the shooting range, I’d take the stupid gun. Of course, the next time I intended to visit a shooting range was going to be one minute past never.
Dutch was onto me, however. Holding up a finger, he said, “And you have to promise to visit the shooting range sometime in the next seven days.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why wait for the shooting range when I have a perfectly good target standing right here in front of me?”
“I’m serious, Abby,” he growled.
“So. Am. I.”
Dutch scoffed at me. “You probably haven’t even gotten bullets for it yet.” He didn’t know Candice had loaded it, and I didn’t feel like telling him.
“I can still hit you over the head with it,” I countered. The man was well on to my last nerve.
But Dutch wasn’t backing down. He held up his phone and wiggled it with emphasis. “Do we have a deal?”
I glared at him for all I was worth, but he only stood there with raised eyebrows and that stupid wiggling phone. “Fine!” I snapped, swiping for his phone, but he lifted it out of my reach and moved to the table. Writing down Candice’s number on a legal pad, he dropped the pen when he was done, grabbed his files, and walked out without a backward glance.
I think that hurt most of all.
Candice got an earful when she picked me up a half hour later. I think if she’d known that she was going to get said earful, she would’ve left me at home. “Why’re you two still arguing about this?” she asked when I’d run out of substitute expletives and was searching for one I could use to cheat without her demanding a quarter.
“Because he just won’t drop it!” I yelled.
“Seems like it’s important to him that you get comfortable with his wedding present,” she said reasonably. “So why not do him this one little favor, and take it to the range for one round of practice? I mean, it can’t be as bad as arguing with Dutch over it and ruining both your days, can it?”
I turned toward the window and stared out at the passing scenery for a while. Why did Candice always have to be so fecking reasonable?
“It’s the principle of the thing,” I said after a moment.
“What principle would that be?”
I turned back to her. “The principle is that you don’t give your new bride a gun for a wedding present!”
But Candice only shrugged. “You know, Abs, you can’t be sure that you won’t need that gun someday. I mean, really need it. It’s not just that it might come in handy. It’s that it could save your life. And if you ask me, that’s the best wedding present Dutch could ever give you.”
I turned myself back to the window and did some really good pouting all the rest of the way to the office. The moment we parked, I got out of Candice’s car without thanking her or looking back. I merely gimped my way to the elevator, got in, punched the button, and rode up alone.
Once I was settled into my office, I managed to hold on to that anger for a whopping ten minutes, but eventually reason returned and I began to realize what an ass I was being. (Swearing here counts, and I socked another quarter into the swear-jar kitty.) I was just about to go apologize to Candice, in fact, when my first client of the morning walked in.
Vowing to make up with Candice after my client, I focused on getting through the session. Luckily, the reading went smoothly, and I managed to land a few really great hits. Buoyed by the energy of having done well, I went in search of my partner, but she wasn’t in her office, and I wasn’t even sure if she’d come up from the garage. For all I knew, she could’ve decided to give me some space for the day.
I checked her side of the suite after my next two readings, but if she’d come and gone or hadn’t come in at all, I couldn’t tell. What’s more, I couldn’t call her because I’d stupidly left the paper with her number at the house, and I couldn’t call Cat because I couldn’t remember her number either.
Still, there was one number I did know by heart simply because it ended in the digits 5050. I dialed it, waited out three rings, and heard, “Harrison,” on the other end.
“Brice?” I asked.
“Abby?”
“Yeah. Listen, my sister has my phone with all my contacts in it and I need to talk to Candice.”
“Isn’t she at the office?”
“No, and I can’t remember her cell. Can you give me her number, please?”
“Sure,” he said, and I heard the sound of a drawer being pulled open. I imagined he was going for his BlackBerry. “You got a pen?”
I wrote the number down and was thanking him when he said, “Say, Abs, I know this is none of my business…”
Uh-oh.
“…but did something happen between you and Agent Rivers today?”
I paused. “Why?”
“Because he’s been distracted and biting everybody’s head off all morning, and I need him to focus on this bombing case.”
Great. Not only had I been exceptionally rude to my best friend, but I was very likely ruining my fiancé’s career. “Can you transfer me to his line?” I asked, laying my head down on the desk in defeat.
“That a girl,” Brice said, and a second later I was listening to hold music.
When Dutch picked up the line, I said, “Hey.”
Dutch answered me with silence.
I sighed and swiveled around in my chair to face the window. “I’m sorry,” I said a bit stiffly.
The cold silence on his end continued.
I sighed again, cooling my jets, and softening my voice, I tried again. “Seriously, cowboy, I am really sorry. I know you’re just trying to look out for me, and I feel bad that this whole gun thing keeps sparking an argument between us.”
“I am,” he said at last.
“You are what?”
“Trying to look out for you, Edgar. I need to know that you can defend yourself. Otherwis
e, I won’t be able to go to work every day and do what I gotta do. And if I’m distracted by thoughts of you in danger without the means to protect yourself, then I leave myself open and vulnerable too.”
That hit home. “I get it. I’ll go to the range next weekend.”
Dutch’s skeptical silence returned.
“I swear, cowboy,” I insisted. “I really will. And if you’ll come with me to give me a few pointers, I’d appreciate it.” I threw that last bit in out of desperation. I no more wanted Dutch to come with me than I wanted my highly impatient, curmudgeonly alcoholic father to teach me how to drive again.
Still, it seemed to work because at last the granite tone in his voice cracked and I got a hint of a chuckle. “Deal,” he said. “And I’ll even spring for the bullets.”
I smiled. “No need. Candice already hooked me up.”
Once I was sure that he and I were back on good terms, I clicked off and dialed Candice’s line. A ringing sound right behind me caused me to jump. Whirling around, I found her standing in front of my desk, arms crossed and a big old grin on her face. “All better?” she asked.
“When did you get back?”
“About five minutes ago.”
“How much of my conversation did you hear?”
“Enough,” she assured me, that grin getting bigger.
“That apology extends to you too, Cassidy.”
“I figured,” she said, reaching down next to my desk to retrieve my purse. “Come on. We’ve got an interview to get to.”
I looked at my watch. “But it’s my lunch hour!”
“We’ll eat on the go,” she said, heading out the door.
I was left to grumble and reach for my cane.
I caught up with her at the elevator, and seeing it reminded me of my earlier behavior. I chilled out quick, even allowing her to enter first when the doors opened.
Once we were in her car again, I remembered to ask, “So who’re we interviewing?”
“Garrett Velkune. He’s an attorney.”
That was helpful. “Whose attorney is he?”
“Kendra’s.”
That was only slightly more helpful. “Her business attorney?”
Candice lowered her shades and gave me a knowing look. “No. He’s her divorce attorney.”
My mouth fell open. “So she was planning on leaving Tristan!”
Candice pushed her shades back into place. “Looks that way. Only, the really weird thing is that the papers for her divorce were filed with the county clerk this morning.”
I turned stunned eyes to her and she gave me a sideways grin. “I had a hunch and went fishing down at the county clerk’s office. The girls there are super sweet, and one of them said that she’d received the papers just an hour earlier from Kendra’s attorney. She didn’t put it together that it was the missing girl from TV until I brought it up, and I left her to call the police about it. I figure that since it’s lunchtime, we have maybe an hour before the detective assigned to the case follows up on the lead.”
My brow furrowed. “But how could Kendra file for divorce this morning when my radar is insisting that she’s dead?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” Candice told me. “And why I thought it okay to steal you away from your lunch hour.”
“Okay, okay,” I conceded. “You’re right. But can we maybe grab something to go? I’m starving, and you know my low blood sugar plays havoc with my concentration…which I’ll need to use with the old radar.”
Candice zipped us through a fast-food drive-through, and by the time we made it to Mr. Velkune’s office, I’d polished off half my chicken sandwich.
Kendra’s attorney worked in a fairly nondescript building, and according to the signage, he hung out his own shingle on the fourth floor. Candice and I rode the elevator up and moved into a completely forgettable hallway with gray Berber carpet and off-white wallpaper mottled with a drab silver-blue print.
We found his office near the end of the hall, and I was prepared for a similar decorative vein inside, but I came up short when Candice and I moved through the door.
The interior of Velkune’s suite was a testament to Texas cattle ranching—not something that in any way dominates the ever hip and trendy city of Austin.
Velkune’s twin sofas were upholstered in a caramel-marbled leather with silver studs along the trim. A cowhide rug lay over beech-wood floors, and a longhorn skull with absolutely gigantic horns was mounted to the main wall.
A cowboy hat graced the top of a short bookshelf cluttered with rodeo trophies, spurs, a lasso, a cattle prod, and several photos of bull riders and cowboys.
Taking all this in, I eyed Candice nervously, slightly worried that if we didn’t watch ourselves, we’d be lassoed and hog-tied.
“Good morning!” said a cheery voice nearby. We turned to see a perky young woman with curly brown hair and a little button nose hurrying to get behind the front desk to welcome us. “Can I help you?”
Candice strode purposely over to her. “We have an emergency appointment with Mr. Velkune. I called about an hour ago?”
Perky trained her gaze to her computer, then back up to Candice. “Ms. Fusco?”
“Yes.”
“Please take a seat and I’ll let Mr. Velkune know you’re here.” She indicated the sofa before picking up the phone receiver.
Candice and I both took a seat, though not a very comfortable one. I was a teensy bit overwhelmed by all the “yipee ki yay!”
Ten minutes passed and I began to tap my foot. I had another appointment in forty-five minutes, and it’d take us at least ten of those to get back to our office. Candice seemed anxious about the time too, because she got up and moved to the desk to ask Perky how much longer it might be, as we were on a very tight schedule.
Perky smiled apologetically and lifted the phone to talk to her boss again. After a short exchange, she replaced the receiver and said, “I’m really sorry. He said he’d be out in just a minute. He’s running behind because he just got back from his honeymoon.”
My brow shot up. “His honeymoon?” I asked. That might explain why Kendra’s divorce papers had been filed only that morning. I suddenly wondered if Mr. Velkune knew that Kendra was missing. “Where did he and his wife go?” I asked abruptly. When Perky turned her surprised eyes at me, I added, “I’m getting married next month and I still don’t know where we’ll be taking our honeymoon.” All true, actually.
“Corsica,” she told me. “It’s one of Mrs. Velkune’s favorite places. Her mother’s family is from that region, so they go there quite a bit.”
I got up and walked casually over to the desk. “Corsica, huh?” I said. “That sounds nice. You say he just got back?”
Perky nodded. “Late last night, so I’m pretty sure he’s still a little jet-lagged.” Perky then blushed slightly and said, “I think we’re all a little jet-lagged, actually. Mr. Velkune gave me some time off too, and I went to California to visit my parents.”
Candice and I eyed each other knowingly. “Ah,” I said.
At that moment, a very tan, good-looking man in his mid-thirties emerged from an office and flashed us a Texas-sized grin. I noticed his teeth were extra white against the deep tan he’d obviously gotten on his honeymoon. “Hey, there!” he said, hurrying forward to shake our hands and apologize for keeping us. “I’ve been trying to dig my way out from under a pile of paperwork all morning,” he explained in a voice with a notable southern lilt. “I just got back from my honeymoon, and there were a few motions that really needed to be sent over to the courthouse this morning.”
“Congratulations,” Candice said, walking behind him as he motioned for us to follow him.
“Thanks,” he said, holding the door to his private office for us as we entered. The interior here was more of the same decor as out in the lobby, except that, comparatively, I thought he’d held back in the lobby.
Velkune’s office was also cluttered with gift baskets and presents, and there
was a banner still on the wall that read, “Congratulations Garrett and Seely!”
“Now, what can I do for you two ladies?” he asked when we were all seated.
Candice crossed her legs to hide the fact that she was switching on her iPhone’s recording device. Anything Mr. Velkune told us in confidence about his client wouldn’t be admissible in court, but I knew that Candice liked to record all her interviews and type them up into notes for later. “We’re here about Kendra Moreno,” she told him.
Velkune cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “Kendra?” he said. “I just filed those docs this morning. Are you the opposing counsel for Mr. Moreno?”
Candice shook her head. “No, Mr. Velkune, I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that. Did you know that Kendra Moreno is missing?”
Velkune’s face drained of color and he sucked in a breath. “Missing?” he said. “When?”
“Almost two weeks,” Candice told him.
He blinked and wiped his chin. “Oh, God,” he said. “I’ve been out of the country. No one told me.”
“We suspected as much when you filed her divorce papers this morning,” Candice told him.
“Are you the police?” he asked abruptly, looking Candice up and down like he expected to see a badge somewhere.
“No,” Candice told him, but she dug in her purse and pulled out her PI badge. “I’m a private investigator looking into Kendra’s disappearance.”
“Do the police even know?” he asked next. I could see the shock on his face. The news really seemed to rattle him.
“Yes,” Candice assured him. “And I expect they’ll be contacting you shortly, but as I’m also investigating her disappearance, I thought we might talk a little beforehand.”
Velkune eyed the phone, and I knew he was thinking of calling the police himself. Candice must’ve caught that too, because she said, “Please, Mr. Velkune? The more people we have looking for Kendra, the faster we might find her.”
He nodded—a bit reluctantly, I thought—and said, “What do you want to know?”
“When was the last time you saw Kendra?”