Reese laughed. “In case you haven’t realized it, I can take whatever you can dish out.”
“I noticed that.”
“Then don’t worry about hurtin’ me. If it ever comes to that, I’ll let you know.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Reese pulled back. “Do you have a headache?”
“Not yet.”
That was what Reese feared. Intense stress was one of Brantley’s migraine triggers, and today had been nothing but.
“You want some Advil?”
Brantley nodded.
“I’ll get you some, but I want you to lie down for a bit. See if you can cut it off at the pass.”
Again, Brantley nodded, which told Reese the headache was coming on fast.
Within a few minutes, Brantley was asleep. Reese doubted he was tired, but the man had battled enough migraines to know that sleep was about the only thing that helped.
He closed Brantley’s door, went to the kitchen, and made himself a sandwich. He carried it and a bottle of water upstairs to his office, Tesha following close on his heels. While he sat at his desk, she snoozed in the sun near the door that went out onto the upper deck.
Because he knew how fast word spread in town, Reese made several calls. First to his mother to let her know what happened since she was working with JJ on the wedding. Cindy Tavoularis agreed to give JJ the rest of today before she called to check on her. She also mentioned she would touch base with Iris to see if there was anything she could do.
Reese then called Z.
“Holy shit,” his brother said after he filled him in on what happened. “Any leads on where she went?”
“No. I’m sure the cops’ll stake out her place, but I doubt she’ll be back.” Reese didn’t know that for sure, but considering Molly and Sonny were smart enough to run after Molly let JJ go, he figured they were smart enough to know better than to go home.
“How’s JJ?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “She’s with Baz.”
“I’ll call and check on them. See if they need anything.”
“Give ’em a couple of hours,” he suggested, although he knew his brother would do whatever he wanted to do.
“Is the task force gonna stay on this?”
“No,” he decided. “Our job is to keep JJ safe goin’ forward. We’ll do that, but I’m leavin’ it up to the cops to figure the rest out.”
“That’s surprising.”
Yeah, it probably was, but they had too much on their plate. Plus, their job was to look for missing people. And Molly and Sonny weren’t missing. They had disappeared, which was something else entirely.
“Let me know if there’s somethin’ I can do.”
“Will do.”
“Is Atticus still comin’ up for the next six weeks?”
“Yeah. I need to get that outta the way. But Brantley and I talked about it. We want him back here for the wedding, so you’ve only got him for five weeks.”
“I’m sure we can make it work in five.”
