Page 95 of Believing in a Billionaire
“Footprints. Scrap of fabric. Anything that indicates he may have been here.” She flicked her beam up and swept the horizon. “Kyle!”
Sierra followed her, sliding down to her and parading around, checking behind bushes. “Kyle! Come out! Come on! Stop playing around. Come out, Julia wants to kiss you!”
“Sierra!” Julia said as she reached them.
“What? If he’s here, that’s totally going to make him answer. He’d do anything to kiss you.”
Julia offered her a chuckle and a begrudging smile as she wrapped her arm around Sierra’s shoulders in a half-hug.
“I don’t see anything here,” Alicia said. “I’m going to check out the car again.”
“Okay,” Julia said as her cell phone rang. She tugged it from her pocket and swiped to accept Alex’s call, toggling on her speakerphone.
“Did you find Junior G’s car?”
“We did. It’s abandoned. No sign of Kyle,” Julia answered.
“And the mystery deepens,” Alex answered as he clacked away on his keyboard.
“He’s definitely not here. We tried to lure him using a kiss from Julia. No dice,” Sierra said.
“Is that you, Peak Princess?”
“Yes, that’s Sierra. And the mystery might have deepened but the trail dead ends,” Julia noted as she climbed back to the road with Sierra. “There’s nothing else here.”
“Not quite,” Alicia answered as she crouched in front of the car, her flashlight pointed at the ground.
Julia crossed to her, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“There are tire marks here. Looks like they lead back to the road.” Alicia followed the tire marks with her flashlight.
“Tire marks, eh?” Alex said. “Give me a second here.”
Julia held her breath as she waited for whatever information Alex needed time to find.
“Does it look like those tires could belong to a creepy white van registered to one…” He paused, the sound of keys clacking filling the air. “DG Industries.”
Julia’s heart dropped at the words, her stomach twisting into a knot. “Oh, no.”
“Recognize something there?”
“DG Industries. It’s the shell company Lydia’s been hiding behind.” Julia snapped her gaze to her sister. “Still think this is as innocent as him blowing off steam?”
Alicia rose to stand with a sigh. “No. But there’s not much we can–”
“Hold your tongue, Detective Dynamo. The great Alex Stone is tracking this van as we speak. What say we see how tightly I can narrow a location down.”
“Alex, I can’t thank you enough for this.”
“No problemo, Sunshine. I really like G-Clone. And I really dislike the Iron Lady.”
Julia tightened her grip on the phone as the night breeze made her shiver. Worry haunted her as ominous visions clouded her mind.
“Okay, we’ve got a white van approaching the next stoplight from your location shortly after G-Junior’s car went through the last light.”
“We’re getting in the car, can you talk us through where it went next?” Alicia asked.
“I can do better than that, Dynamo. I’m tracking Sunshine’s phone, so I can guide you to where that van went unless we run out of security cameras for me to tap,” Alex answered.
