Justine Davis - Operation Blind Date

“Off how?”

“They just don’t sound like her.”

“The wording or what she’s saying?”

“Yes. And there are mistakes. Things that are just flat-out wrong.”

He tapped the side of his now-empty cup with his index finger. “All right. Could she have lost her phone, had it stolen?”

“She would have a replacement by now. Amber wouldn’t go from the living room to the kitchen without a phone. And besides, she missed our get-together yesterday, without even a call to cancel. She would never, ever do that. All of this is completely out of character for her.”

Which probably explained the tears today, Teague thought.

“I remember my sister telling me about girls who blow off their friends when a new guy comes along,” he said, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“Amber’s not one of them. Nor am I. We always hated that, swore it would never happen, and it never did.”

She was so adamant he decided to leave that one alone. “So she would have told you if she was going to run off with this guy she just happened to meet.”

Laney went a little pale. Cutter’s head came up, so Teague knew he wasn’t imagining her sudden tension.

“She didn’t just happen to meet him.” He saw moisture gathering in her eyes, saw her visibly fighting the tears. “I introduced them. This is my fault.”

“Whoa. Slow down. You knew this guy?”

She nodded. “Slightly. I knew him from my old job, where I learned, over in Lynnwood.”

“A bit of a drive, from the U-District.”

“My boss specialized in pocket dogs,” Laney said. “People came from farther than that.”

He smiled at the term, but said only, “Go on.”

“So, Edward, he’d even asked me out a couple of times. But I wasn’t attracted, and I was too busy with plans for this shop.”

“And?”

“Last month Amber and I went to the mall there. She loved to shop. Edward was there with a friend, we ran into him. I introduced them. She seemed interested, and so did he, she’d just broken up with a guy and was kind of down, so I told her she should go, he was a nice guy.” She blinked again, more rapidly this time. “I told her she should go, damn it. I practically set her up on a blind date with this guy, and now—”

“Easy.” Instinctively he reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “You didn’t know.”

Not that he was sure anything was wrong himself, not really. He needed to know more about what had triggered her worry.

“Tell me about the texts you felt were off. Did you answer?”

“Yes. But she never responded. Which isn’t like her, either.”

“What if you initiate a text?”

She shook her head. “I either get no reply, or if I do, it doesn’t really answer what I said.”

“Example?”

“I ask where she is, she says she’s fine. I ask when she’s coming back, she says she’s having a great time.”

Which could, Teague thought, be answers. Just not the ones Laney wanted or expected.

“You showed them to the police?”

She grimaced again as she nodded. “They thought it was just drunk texting. I know better.”

“Because?”

She reached into the low front pocket of her shirt—when had scrubs become somehow sexy? he wondered—and pulled out a phone. She tapped it a few times, then held it out to him. “This is the first one I got.”

He took it and read the message.

Take care of Pepper 4me, pls? He’s such a gd dog. Thx

“Seems innocuous enough,” Teague said neutrally.

“Yes. Except for three things.”

“Three?”

“Pepper? A cat. And a she.” She took a deep breath. “And she’s been dead for ten years.”

Chapter 4

“Amber has never been that drunk in her entire life,” Laney said firmly. “Pepper was her pet for eighteen years, from childhood, and she adored her. She cried for months when she died.”

It wasn’t much to go on. But even Teague had to admit that three such mistakes in a text message fifty characters long was a bit much. Even drunk on her ass, would Amber have forgotten Pepper was a cat not a dog, a she not a he, and that she had died a decade ago?

Teague glanced down at Cutter, still ensconced on the floor with his head on Laney’s foot, as if to hold her there until the story was out. He tried to imagine, even drunk, ever forgetting about the dog.

Nope. Impossible. And he’s not even my dog.

“Are there more?” he asked.

She nodded. “None as obviously wrong as that one, but some. Read through them. I cleared out all the non-Amber ones.”

He wondered for a moment if there had been some from a boyfriend. But she had said she hadn’t been attracted to this Edward, implying if she had been, perhaps she might not have said no. So there couldn’t be a boyfriend. Unless she was the juggling type. He didn’t think so. If nothing else, he suspected she didn’t have time.

And none of that was in the slightest bit relevant, he reminded himself.

He focused on the series of texts. Most seemed innocuous to him, something about being late for the office and catching up later, one about wanting to buy a new car, and a final one about jetting off to Canada. Nothing jumped out at him, but then nothing would have about the first one, either.

He didn’t have to ask. The moment he looked up, Laney ran through a list. “Except for days when she meets with clients, Amber works from home. She bought a new car late last year, and the process exhausted her so much she plans on keeping it at least ten years. And she absolutely hates to fly. Canada’s way too close to get her on an airplane.”

“You told the police all this?”

“Yes.” She let out a compressed breath. “Their answer was people newly in love do things they might not otherwise. And I can’t argue with that. Especially Amber. She’s always...impulsive, especially with men. More than me, anyway.”

Teague filed that self-observation from Laney away in the “might be good to remember” slot in his mind. Even as he did it, he silently chastised himself; he needed to be paying attention, not...whatever he was doing.

She lowered her gaze to the painted surface of the small, round table. There was something scratched into the surface, something Teague couldn’t read upside down because of the angular shape and unevenness of the letters. A name, perhaps. Carved by somebody as infatuated as Laney said Amber got?

“It’s my fault,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I was even glad when he seemed even more interested in Amber than he had been in me, after I’d said no all those times.”

“Laney—”

She picked at the scratched name with a thumbnail. “I told her to go. That he seemed like a nice guy.”

“Did you lie? Did you really think he was a bad guy?”

Her head snapped up. “No! I would never—”

She cut herself off, giving a short, abrupt shake of her head.

“I brought them together. She never would have met him if not for me. I still feel responsible. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but...”

Teague stared at her for a long, silent moment, fighting down the memories that battered at him. “I get it. Believe me, I get it.”

When he refocused, Laney was staring at him. “You do, don’t you.” The way she said it wasn’t a question. “You lost somebody, didn’t you?”

“My sister. Years ago.” And yesterday. “But Amber is now. Let’s stay there.”

For a moment he thought she might persist. And he wasn’t about to talk about Terri. He’d talked to no one about her in a very long time, except Quinn, and then only because he’d known he had to be thoroughly honest during the long vetting process for going to work at Foxworth.

As if Teague just thinking the name Foxworth had roused him, Cutter got up. He turned from Laney to look up at him. When he was certain he had Teague’s attention, he walked toward where his car was parked. After a few steps he stopped and looked back over his shoulder at both of them.