“Because I know her. She wasn’t the type to run off. She mentioned someone was following her just before, and when I looked into it, I found out there’s a scouting group that works in her area. I checked hospitals, friends, everything. There just isn’t another option.”
Trent heard the fear beneath her steady voice. He knew that unease, the worry when someone couldn’t do anything but wait.
How many women had gone missing, ones who had just stopped coming into his gym, when he’d had to just wait and see if they ever showed up again?
Most didn’t.
“So you dangled yourself as bait so you could find Anne?” Kyle reiterated.
She nodded. “This is the last auction. Shehasto be here, and I’m not going to let her disappear without doing whatever I can.”
“And you didn’t tell us this because?” Daniel asked.
“Because I thought you might have thought it wasn’t a good reason, maybe thought I was too close to the case and, frankly, because it wasn’t your business.”
Ouch.So it seemed her temper wasn’t entirely doused. Then again, Trent doubted it would ever be fully gone. Not that he minded. A wilting flower wouldn’t last long in this world.
Kyle didn’t look nearly as willing to accept her sharp answer, though. “You need to make sure you stop keeping secrets, sugar. I trust this is the last one?”
She waited a moment too long to nod. Still, Trent knew they only had so far to push.
Besides, no doubt she had secrets of her own, ones she didn’t owe them.
“I want you to write down everything you can recall about Anne. Description, history, all the facts. They need to be added to the case files so we can hopefully identify her during the auction raid. We’ll find her, pet.”
A slow breath blew through Alison’s full pink lips. She twisted her hand and squeezed back—an unexpected reaction. “I’m not used to this.”
“To what?”
“To having someone on my side.”
Thatgot him. He knew exactly how that felt, to always feel as though he had to shoulder everything on his own. Hadn’t he just been thinking it? It got old, fast, and Alison had done it her entire life, it sounded like.
“It’s new, sure, but new isn’t bad. Hell, you might just be surprised by how much you like new,” Kyle said.
She pressed her lips together, as if she couldn’t quite fathom such a thing, before she nodded.
Trent realized why exactly it bothered him so much to see Kyle and Daniel grow closer to her. She seemed like a stand-in for him, someone getting what he craved, gaining back that sense of family and connection.
He couldn’t fault her for it, but damn, he wished he could see a way where he could get that, too.
* * **
Daniel hated being the one to back down, yet something had nagged him for days.
Each time he looked at Trent, each time they ended up at the same table, when they happened to pass in a hallway, an uneasy gnawing in Daniel’s stomach refused to be ignored.
It reminded him of his mother telling him that was his conscience, and that he’d better listen to it before things got worse.
That had brought him out back, where Trent was flipping burgers at the barbecue.How can someone frustrate me this much but still feel like family?
If he ever figured out a reason for that, he’d be the smartest man in the world. Family had been pissing one another off forever.
“Let’s stop doing this,” Daniel blurted out.
Trent looked over his shoulder, his eyebrow lifted, before pointing at the burgers with his spatula. “I mean, they’ll burn if I ignore them.”
Smart ass.“You know what I’m talking about.”
