Noah ended the call and hurled the phone onto the patio table. It skittered across the surface and clattered to the ground.
Lowell flinched but said nothing.
The rage that had been building all day erupted. Noah spun, searching for something to destroy, something to absorb the violence clawing at his chest. His gaze landed on one of Missy’s carefully arranged potted mums.
Before he could think, he kicked. The ceramic pot exploded against the patio stones, dirt and yellow flowers scattering everywhere.
“Noah.” Lowell’s hand landed on his shoulder.
He shrugged it off. “Don’t.” He was breathing hard. The small act of destruction had done nothing to ease the pressure threatening to crack his skull open.
“I’m so sorry.” Lowell’s voice was tentative. “I had no idea?—”
“Sorrydoesn’t bring her back.” Noah rounded on his former friend, this man who’d once known him better than anyone, who’d helped him move into his first apartment, who’d been his best man. “You’ve been feeding him information about me. About my business, my life, my family. And you never once stopped to think about what he might do with it.”
Lowell’s face crumpled. “I thought… I was just helping him compete. Business stuff. I didn’t expect something like this to happen.”
Noah had never wanted to punch a man more in his life. But he had better things to do.
He pulled out his phone and called Detective Norton. The detective answered immediately.
“I just talked to Hayes,” Noah said without preamble. “He admitted to everything. He’s been working with Violet, but he claims he doesn’t know where she is. He said he’s cooperating?—“
“He is. We heard everything he said to you, and he’d already told us all of that.”
“How do we know he’s telling the truth? Maybe he knows exactly where she is, and he just doesn’t want to admit it.”
“You’re going to have to trust?—”
“Trust him? Are you crazy?”
“Not him.” Norton’s words came slowly, his tone low and even. “Trust us. We know what we’re doing.”
Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his niece who was missing. But Noah’s attitude wasn’t helping anything.
“You have to find that apartment. How hard can it be to track down one woman with a four-year-old?”
“Mr. Aylett, I understand your frustration?—”
“No, you don’t.” Noah turned away from Lowell, who was picking up pieces of the shattered pot. “You have no idea what this feels like. Every second she’s gone is another second she’s terrified, wondering why no one’s coming for her.”
“We have everyone working on this, locals, state police. The FBI is involved. We’re doing everything we can to find her.”
The detective’s calm professionalism grated against Noah’s raw nerves. He wanted urgency, panic, the same desperate energy that was tearing him apart from the inside.
“I’m coming back,” Noah said, not because he wanted to be cooped up at the house, but because he had no idea what else to do.
“Be safe,” the detective said. “I’ll call if there are any developments.”
But there wouldn’t be any developments. Hayes was their only link to Charlotte, and he knew nothing.
Noah couldn’t help the despair seeping into every cell of his body. Charlotte was gone, and nobody knew where to find her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Shadows stretched across Norfolk’s streets as Delaney squinted at yet another license plate, her eyes burning from intense focus. The November sun hung low on the horizon, painting the world in deceptive gold while stealing away the clarity she desperately needed.
“Come on,” she whispered, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel as she crawled past a row of parked cars. Gray Honda, but wrong plate. Silver sedan, not even close. She’d been at this for hours, circling through neighborhoods near the beach, checking every parking lot, every side street, every hint of a vehicle that might belong to Violet.
