Page 17 of Keeping Collette

Collette flinched. That last comment dug the knife in, like he thought it would. “Then what am I supposed to do? Go on with my life as if nothing has happened? As if Courtney is just on an extended vacation? I can’t do that, Deal. I can’t. I need to know what happened to my sister. Even if that means seeing her dead body. At least I’d have closure then. Not knowing would eat away at me until I’m nothing but an empty shell.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you forget. We’re not stopping just because we’ve come up with a possible scenario. We’re still investigating.” He got up and went over to where she stood. Her arms now down at her sides. Deal reached out and took hold of her hands, his skin buzzing at the contact. “Whatever happens we’ll get the answers and closure you need.”

Chapter Nine

Collette looked at the derelict houses. The gardens that were nothing but a mass of weeds and dead grass. The aura of hopelessness, despair, and desolation crowded in on her as she and Deal drove down the street toward the strip mall where Courtney had last been seen.

Everything he’d said about being able to get answers became more succinct with every piece of road they traveled down.

In the back of her mind, she’d accepted that it was likely a lost cause, but she had to go. Had to see the last place where Courtney had been.

Just because she could feel the desperation from her surroundings, didn’t mean she wasn’t going to cling to hope that someone may have an answer. No matter how small or impossible it might be.

It had taken two days to come to terms with what Deal had told her. She’d left the offices after their meeting. Deal had followed her home. He’d given her no choice when he’d, once again, trailed behind her as she walked to her car.

If she was being honest with herself, she’d been grateful that he had. It had given her a sense of security knowing he was in his big SUV behind her. Once she’d gotten home, he hadn’t attempted to pry an invitation out of her. He’d walked her to the door, gave her one last hug, and then left.

That night, her dreams had been a combination of finding her sister’s dead body and being in Deal’s arms, finding solace and… something else. An emotion she hadn’t been too keen on examining too closely.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as he stopped at a four-way intersection.

“Define okay? Am I happy I’m here? Not really, but I know I need to do this. Am I okay with knowing that my sister could be dead?” Her voice hitched, and she swallowed down her tears. She never cried, but in the last couple of weeks, she’d done more crying than she’d done in her lifetime. She had to be strong for Courtney, even if the worst came to fruition. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with that.”

“No one would expect you to be. But you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got me and Astrid, along with everyone else who works at Alliez.”

Right this moment, it was comforting to know she wasn’t going through this by herself, but once they’d located her sister, she’d go back to being Astrid’s assistant. She wouldn’t be part of the inner Alliez family, and it would do her well to remember that.

There’d only been one person she could count on. The one person who’d been there her whole life.

Herself.

Her parents had never been there for her. And while she’d had Courtney, her sister was eleven years younger than her. Collette had been the one doing the looking after.

“You don’t believe me?” Deal questioned, when the silence stretched between them.

“I do. For now.” She gazed out the window at the convenience store. The bars on the windows and doors didn’t give it an open and inviting feel. It screamed keep away. Yet beyond the glass and steel may be answers that she needed—even if they were ones she didn’t want to hear. “Are we going in?”

If Deal wanted to push the narrative that she now had Alliez Security members as her family, he didn’t voice it, and she was grateful for that. “Yeah, but hang on a minute.”

He leaned over the to the back seat and grabbed a black backpack. He opened it and pulled out a small box.

“What’s that?” she asked when he opened it, and she saw what looked like a button.

He held it up. “This is a recording device.”

“Is it a camera? Or just a voice recorder?” It really did look like a button. Did he expect her to wear it? She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans because Deal had told her to dress casually. There’s no way it wouldn’t look out of place on her. He, on the other hand, wore an unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt, that had seen better days over the top of a plain black T-shirt. It would make sense for him to wear the device, especially considering he was the security expert and she wasn’t.

Even in clothes that were supposed to make him look unkempt, he looked sexy in them. Something she shouldn’t be thinking about. Especially now.

“It’s both.” He clipped it onto his shirt, and if she hadn’t seen him do it, she never would’ve known. It blended in that well.

“Thank goodness you didn’t want me to wear that,” she murmured, and now saying it out loud, heard the ridiculousness of it all.

“I would never assume or spring something like this on you without talking to you first.”

“Of course.” She glanced back at the store. “We can’t put it off any longer, people are going to get suspicious.”

The fact they weren’t in Deal’s SUV probably helped them, but lingering in one spot for too long wasn’t ideal.