“She doesn’t like working from home.” He shoved his cell back into his pocket.
“Come on, let’s get this stuff packed away and you can go see her.”
Noah lifted the harnesses. When he dropped it back into the box, a wooden plank at the bottom rattled.
What the hell?
He looked closer to see that the edges were warped. Then he reached inside, and sure enough, with a tug, it lifted off.
He cursed when he saw what was underneath.
“What?” Colt glanced over his shoulder. “Shit!”
Noah pulled his cell from his pocket and hit Jesse’s name.
His cousin answered immediately. “Noah, hey, I was just going to call you.”
“Colt and I found the battery acid.”
There was a heavy pause. “Where?”
“Under a plank of wood in the storage box beside the climbing wall. It’s a small container, a couple ounces.”
“Jesus.” Wind blew over the line. “Okay. I’m coming down there now. Also, I was calling to tell you that we can’t find Rhett.”
Noah straightened and put the call on speaker. “What do you mean, you can’t find Rhett?”
Colt stepped closer to the phone before Jesse continued. “We went to his house this morning. He wasn’t there, and his roommate told us he hadn’t come home last night.”
“Why were you looking for him?” Colt asked.
“Buck called us because he remembered something.”
Noah’s chest tightened. “What?”
“The morning he, Rhett, and Cass were setting up, the chalk bag was missing. He and Cass left Rhett alone with the equipment for about ten minutes to find it.”
The fuck? “Why didn’t Cass say anything?”
“According to Buck, the two of them have been in an on-and-off relationship. So, she—”
“Could have been covering for him,” Colt finished, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What a fucking mess.”
Another staff member they couldn’t trust. Just what they needed.
Noah opened his mouth to respond when a sudden scream pierced the air. It sounded far away, but both Noah and Colt’s heads jerked up.
“What the hell was that?” Colt asked.
“Addie.” Her name had barely left Noah’s lips before he was running.
Addie shovedher phone back into her pocket. There was no way Noah was happy she was here and not locked in his house. But she’d been going stir-crazy at home. Literally, if she’d sat there and looked at the same four walls a second longer, she would have completely lost her mind.
It sounded dramatic. It wasn’t. It was an accurate account of what would have happened.
A few other cars were scattered throughout the lot. Noah’s truck. Colt’s Audi. Jules’s red convertible. Even Cass’s Ford.
With Buck injured and Rhett no longer an employee, everyone was going to have to pull longer hours. Addie had already canceled quite a few sessions.
