Page 59 of Chasing Wildflowers
My mouth drops open and I put my hands on my hips giving her a stern look. “You and Kam should stop gossiping so much.”
She chuckles. “Where is the fun in that?”
I shake my head, walking away to tend to my other customers who have filtered in, making a mental note to have a conversation with Kam about boundaries.
A forewarning hums through my body, as I pour drinks and grab bottles from the cool, but I don’t have time to dwell on it as more people pour through the door. Once the band starts I’m so busy, I completely forget about the note and the delivery driver.
It isn’t until I’m waiving goodbye to the last of my customers as they walk out the door that I have a second to breathe. It’s been nonstop all night, and the smell of spilled beer and cigarette smoke clings to me like a second skin.
My eyes move around the now empty bar, and I let out a sigh when I take in the mess that awaits me. Empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays sit on every table, the floor is stickier than usual with spilled beer. Someone dumped what looks to be a full bowl of popcorn on the ground, and left it there bowl and all.
I pull my phone from my back pocket to let Jameson know it’s going to take me a while to clean up. Just as I pull up his text thread, the door slams open, the sharp crack ricocheting off walls as cool air rushes in.
Jameson stands there, panic flashing through his eyes, raw and unguarded in a way I’ve never seen before.
Twenty-five
Jameson
My boots slap against the thin, stained carpet as I pace my motel room, slightly out of tune with the frantic clicks of Miles’ keyboard. “How the fuck did he find out?” I snap, my voice sharp and ragged.
“Jameson!” Miles yells, grabbing my attention. I stop pacing and turn to look at him, shoulders slumping with defeat.
I take a deep breath, running a hand through my hair. It’s taken him all damn day to get here from New York, and I’ve been going out of my fucking mind, pacing the small room like a caged animal. More than once, I’ve almost grabbed my keys, ready to drive straight to the bar, just to see that Lane’s okay with my own eyes.
“I need you to calm the fuck down and tell me exactly what he said,” he says, voice even.
I drop into the chair across from him at the small table in the corner of the room. “All the message says is ‘You’ve been lying to me.’” I pull my phone from my pocket, handing it over.
He takes it without a word and plugs it into his laptop. His fingers fly across the keys, the rapid clicks echoing in the small room. He rubs a hand across his jaw, and narrows his eyes, brows drawn tight as he studies the screen.
His eyes meet mine over the top. “Do you have any pictures of Lane on here?”
I narrow my eyes. “Of course I do, but you said my phone was secure.”
“It is.” He mutters something under his breath and taps a few keys, before disconnecting my phone and handing it back to me. “We know Lane doesn’t have social media, but that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t taken a picture of her recently without her knowing.”
Why would the client hire us if he could do that kind of search himself?
It doesn’t take me long to put it together; the realization makes my stomach clench. “You think he already hired someone else to find her?”
He turns the laptop around. “Yes, I do.”
Right there in front of me is a picture of myself and Lane with her favorite author. A picture I never in a billion years thought would be posted by the author herself. Out of all of the pictures taken, how the fuck did our picture end up being one of the few she posted?
My heart beats faster, a steady pounding in my ears. This is my fucking fault.
The client hired someone else. It doesn’t matter when or why. All that matters is that he knows I found her.
“Jameson!” Miles yells my name, snapping me out of my panicked thoughts. My eyes snap to him. “You need to stay calm and think this through. That picture was taken weeks ago, over an hour from here, and her name isn’t even listed. There’s a chance he doesn’t know exactly where she is yet. If he did, he would have made a move on her.”
His words do little to ease the anxiety humming through my body. The only thing that matters is keeping Lane safe. We need to find out who this asshole is before he finds her.
“Call him,” Miles says, voice hard.
Fuck.
I lean back, arms crossed over my chest. “No fucking way. I’m not bringing him into this.”
