My bear goes still, waiting.
"I… shit." She stops. Another breath. "I don't have anything. We don't have anything. The case is going nowhere, which is why I need to speak to Zara, to get something that might help us."
Even with my back to her, I can hear in her voice how much it pains her to admit that.
"For now, keeping her safe is my top priority. But if she tells me, or Ben, anything that I think might be helpful to you, I'll pass it on. Because I do know how to do my job, and whoever this prick is deserves to be punished."
I scribble something nonsensical on the notepad and keep my eyes down, done with this conversation.
Her shoes cross the floor in the periphery of my vision, then the door opens and closes behind her with a slam that rattles the frame the way her entrance did.
"Shut up," I tell my bear, who whines when the exterior door clicks shut. "It's better this way."
Dropping the pen, I lean back and stare at the ceiling for a long time, frustrated with myself for losing my grip the second she walked through the door.
I bang my fist down hard on the table and curse out loud,because mad as I am, all I can think about is how good it felt to have her touch me again.
15
LISA
Kozlov.
I stare at the name in my notes and try to work out if this could really be true.
The barmaid who phoned me yesterday is reliable. She sees more from behind a bar than half my colleagues see in a year, and she doesn't waste my time. So, when she told me she was almost certain she'd seen Amber Reeves hidden away in a VIP section of Kozlov's strip joint two towns over, I took it seriously.
Kozlov has been a person of interest to half the departments in this state for years. He runs strip clubs, allegedly runs girls, and has been investigated for trafficking more than once, but he’s walked away every time.
My pen taps against the legal pad. Why on earth would Amber be there? She’s not there willingly, I’d bet my life on that, but why would he do something as risky as bringing her out in public like that? It doesn’t make sense.
I lay the barmaid's statement next to the print-out I've been keeping on the anonymous reward that started circulating five days ago. Six figures for verifiable information on Amber Reeves's current whereabouts, posted on the dark web.
Is this someone who doesn’t want to pay the ransom they’re being asked for and is doing this instead? I don't like any of the scenarios I come up with when I try to guess what Kozlov’s plan for Amber could be.
I need to speak with Zara. She’s Amber’s sister, and the only person who might know what business an actress had with a man like Kozlov. Beau has sent me her statements, but I need to hear it straight from the source, and I also need to reassure myself that she really is in good hands with this Ben guy.
I close the file, grab my keys, and head for the door before I can talk myself out of it.
On my way out to the car park, I remind myself this is about Zara, but then I picture Beau with my wrist pressed to his mouth, hard-on pressing against my thigh, and replay the words he said the night of the rescue.
Unless you're telling me you've changed your mind.
The road up to Ben Lennox's cabin is barely a road at all. It's a single-lane track carved into the side of a mountain with tufts of grass growing up the middle. The narrow bumpy lane is hemmed in by trees so thick that the morning light barely reaches the ground. And the higher I climb, the more obvious it becomes that my sedan is not built for this and the more my body starts paying attention. By the time I'm five minutes from the cabin, my heart is doing something I'd rather it didn't, and I've caught myself checking my reflection in the rear-view mirror twice, just in case.
I'm mulling over whether Beau knows more than he's letting on when movement in the treeline catches my attention. Something large and brown is watching from the shadows between the pines.
A huge grizzly bear, bigger than any I've ever seen, is sitting on its haunches at the edge of the road like a sentry, its dark eyes tracking my car as I pass.
It doesn't hide or back away, just sits there, perfectly still, watching me go by.
"Well, that's not fucking creepy at all," I mutter, rolling slowly by as his massive, square head turns to follow my car.
My grandmother would have had something to say about that. She believed bears were wise old souls, guardians and healers, capable of shedding their fur and walking among us as men. I used to roll my eyes when she got going on that.
This bear though, with the way he's watching me like I'm trespassing, I would not want to meet in any form.
I shake it off and continue on, finally taking a bend where the trees fall away, and a rustic cabin comes into view. My foot hits the brake before my brain has finished processing what I'm seeing.
