Page 10

He makes a poofing motion with his hand and I grit my teeth, worry eating away at me. How could she just vanish?

“What have you found?” Blaze asks and he grabs a folder off his desk before slapping it down in front of us.

“Kady Jane Sinclair, born on September first, nineteen-ninety-one, grew up in the foster care system until she aged out in two-thousand-nine and worked at Sunrise Diner until she was fired in May two-thousand-eleven for missing a week of shifts. After that, absolutely nothing.”

My gaze drifts over the same information on the paper in front of me. “What date did she start missing work?”

“Looks like,” he murmurs, turning back to his computer and typing briefly before turning back to me. “May tenth.”

Fuck.

“That’s the day after I got arrested.”

Blaze shakes his head, staring out of the window. “What are the fucking odds?”

“You want an actual answer to that? ‘Cause it’ll take me a second,” Streak adds and Blaze shakes his head.

“There’s absolutely nothing after this?” I ask, pointing to the paper. “No bank transactions, no rent payments, no employment history, nothing?”

Streak’s eyes fill with sympathy. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep looking but if I had to guess, I’d say she either doesn’t want to be found or… there’s nothing left to find.”

It would have been kinder if he punched a hole right through my chest. I stare down at the floor, trying to suck air into my lungs as my mind works over the possibility and pain trickles through my bloodstream.

She can’t be gone.

Her face pops into my mind from that last morning. We were laying in bed, my ring was on her finger, and my whole fucking world was perfect. So utterly perfect that it should have be criminal. We had such grand plans for our future but hours later, I was being handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police car and she was vanishing into thin air.

I jerk to my feet and turn away from them. Their gazes bore into my back, I can feel it, but my focus is on getting some air and putting as much distance as I can between me and the unsettling truth that Streak just laid at my feet. Neither one of them say a thing as I practically run from the room and storm down the hallway. When I get outside, I grit my teeth, clench my fists, and take a deep breath.

No.

My girl is not gone.

Everyone else will call me crazy based on the evidence but I know she’s out there somewhere and I won’t stop until I find her.

* * * *

The air carries a chill and I force myself to focus on that as I wrap my lips around the end of the cigarette and inhale, staring off into the darkness. All damn day, I’ve been running from the truth Streak dropped at my feet this morning and no matter how confident I feel that I will find her, I still can’t help but worry. Either way I look at this situation, it’s not good news. If something happened to her, who knows what state I will find her in and as much as the thought kills me, it’s not as bad as imagining that she willingly walked away from me.

My thoughts drift back to the first time I saw her. We were eleven and my family had just moved to Baton Rouge for my dad’s new job, something I hated him for. I didn’t want to leave all my friends in Montana. Of course, I didn’t realize just how amazing it was since I was too young to understand things like fate and destiny but the moment I stepped into that classroom and watched her go toe-to-toe with the biggest kid in the class, my heart belonged to her.

Not that she ever made it easy.

“Henn?” a voice calls from behind me and I glance over my shoulder as Blaze steps out of the clubhouse, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Shit. It’s cold out tonight.”

I nod, taking another drag of my cigarette and turn back to stare into the darkness.

“How are you holding up?”

“Fantastic,” I shoot back, letting out a sardonic laugh. “Either the love of my life is hiding from me and doing a spectacular job at it or she’s dead. That’s the general consensus, right?”

“Nobody said that,” he interjects and I scoff, shaking my head. Smoke billows out of my mouth and I watch it as it rises and disperses above me.

“No. But y’all might as well have.”

He claps a hand on my shoulder and I resist the urge to shake him off. “Hell, what do we really know? It’s not like any of us ever tried to get to know Kady before you got locked up.”

I nod in agreement. Back then, the club was never about family like they are now - as evidenced by the dinner all the old ladies insisted on putting together tonight. I appreciate the effort and I’m sure as hell looking forward to eating some real damn food but mostly, I just want Kady.