Page 14 of Loving You Always

“I have her purse.” Cam reached behind the chair to pass the bag Meredith recognized immediately as Kerris’s. “The cops gave it to me.”

She grabbed it, rifling through the contents until she found Kerris’s phone. She scrolled down to find Mama Jess’s number, pausing over another contact along the way. Trisha McAvery. She recognized the name. Kerris had told her Walsh’s assistant, Trisha McAvery, admired her bracelet and was taking it to a friend in New York who might be interested in buying.

She called Mama Jess, providing the few details she could before urging the older woman to come. Meredith glanced up at Cam, head still in his hand, foot tapping a restless rhythm on the waiting room floor. Meredith stalked around the corner and down to the ladies’ restroom, slipping into the handicapped stall. She started dialing, letting the door slam shut behind her. After three rings, Meredith was about to hang up or hope for a voice mail.

“Hello?” a sleep-heavy voice asked from the other end. “Kerris?”

Trisha must have Kerris programmed in her phone, too.

“No, this is actually Kerris’s best friend, Meredith.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is, Meredith? It’s freaking two o’clock in the morning.”

“Sorry about that.” Meredith bit her lip, hoping this wasn’t crazy. “I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t an emergency. And Walsh’s number isn’t in Kerris’s phone.”

There was a loaded silence before she heard Trisha speak again, her tone more alert.

“Has something happened to Kerris, Meredith?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God. Is she okay?”

“No.”

“Is she alive?”

“She is, but it’s bad.” Meredith swiped at an errant tear. “I thought…well, she and Walsh…they’re—”

“Yes, I understand and you’re right.” It sounded like Trisha was now in motion. “Walsh would want to know. Tell me everything.”

***

Three bangs on his door. Insistent. Successive.

Walsh creaked his eyes open, sat up, and glanced around his bedroom, struggling to orient himself. He’d been in negotiations with Sheikh Kassim all day about a possible merger, and well into the night. Walsh glanced at the watch on his wrist. He’d been asleep for only an hour or so.

The banging came again. Whoever stood on the other side of that door should prepare for his sleep-deprived wrath. Walsh dragged on pajama bottoms, grumbling and stumbling his way to the door.

“Who the hell is it?”

“It’s Trisha.”

Walsh swung the door open and narrowed his eyes on his assistant, standing in the hallway outside his apartment.

“Trisha, this better be good.”

“I need to tell you something.”

“In the middle of the night?” He stepped back to allow her inside.

She stepped into the modern luxury of his apartment. She’d been there only a few times, usually to drop something off from the office. She eyed the large black-and-white photo of his mother hanging over his fireplace. She pressed her eyes shut for a moment before opening them to meet his stare.

“Out with it, Trish.”

“When I first started working for you, you gave me a short list of people. You said to find you if they ever needed you, no matter what.”

Walsh’s eyes slitted and his body tightened. If anything had happened to anyone on that list, he’d lose it.

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