Jennifer Morey - Front Page Affair

Braden jogged to the sidewalk and read the license plate. After memorizing the number, he headed back toward his Subaru. Whoever the man was hadn’t anticipated Braden would notice the tail, much less take action. Not many knew that side of him. To most, he was an average guy. But he was also someone who couldn’t be pushed around. Ever since he was a kid, he’d worked hard at that.

But this was a situation that could go beyond kickboxing and target practice in his free time. Why was someone tailing him?

Back inside his car, his father’s tone over the phone reclaimed him. Was the reason the man in the BMW had singled him out related to whatever he’d go home to find out from his parents?

Fifteen minutes were too long. As he turned onto his street, he saw his parents’ car in the driveway of his middle-class, three-bedroom house. They had a key and must be waiting for him inside. A sense of foreboding kept him on alert.

After going through the garage, he stepped into his open kitchen, spotting his parents across the island counter. His mother stood rigidly beside the bulky, round pine table and his dad rose up from a chair, pushing it in and standing behind it. In their late fifties, they looked a decade younger. His dad was tall and fit, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white, pink and gray finely striped shirt. His hazel eyes were heavy with apprehension and his salt-and-pepper hair uncombed. His mother kept her hair dyed the chocolate brown of her youth and her petite body in shape. As usual, she was put together in big, stylish silver-and-blue earrings, a matching necklace and designer slacks and blouse. The whites around her green eyes were red from crying. Braden had gotten his eyes from his mother and his dark hair from his father, although his dad wore his shorter.

It was difficult to see them so shaken.

“We have something to tell you,” his mother said, her still-beautiful face ravaged with strain.

“It’s your sister,” his dad finished for her.

So, it was his sister. Her trouble wasn’t over. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“She’s gone missing.”

Missing might mean dead. She had gone to the British Virgin Islands on vacation last week. Now she was missing.

Damn it. What would he do if he never saw her again? He and his sister were close in age and had done a lot together. They lost contact when they went to college, and then he’d gotten married. She hadn’t married and was the top executive he’d never be.

“How long?”

“She hasn’t answered her phone in two days.” His dad leaned on the back of the chair, his hands gripping the top, pale wood bar.

Why hadn’t they called him sooner? He subdued his reproach. They probably didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. Now it was necessary. His parents hadn’t achieved success by being impulsive. His dad was an architect who’d started a log business that provided well for his family. His mother didn’t need her psychology degree, but she practiced out of their home.

“Has she called you?” his mother asked, looping her arm with his dad’s.

“No. Not since before she left.” She’d been upset over losing her job. “Have you talked to the police there?”

His mother began crying softly.

Freeing his arm from hers, his dad pulled her closer. “According to them, she never checked in at the Frenchman’s Point Hotel, but the manager there said he saw her get into a taxi.”

That offered a small glimmer of hope. “Where did the taxi take her?”

“The detective didn’t know. Neither did the hotel manager. He only saw her get into the taxi.”

“Have they questioned the driver?”

His mother’s crying deepened into a wrenching sound.

“He was found shot to death later that night.”

Murdered? The sting of shock bled into deflated hope. Tatum could be in serious trouble.

“The airline confirmed she boarded her plane,” his dad said unnecessarily. If she was seen getting into a taxi, she must have made it to the island. “The detective assigned to the case said she didn’t rent a car,” his dad rambled on, a father distraught. “He couldn’t find evidence that she took a cab there. The other taxi drivers there didn’t have a record and didn’t recognize her picture.”

Frenchman’s Cay was an island off the coast of Tortola. “Who is the detective?”

“Monty Crawford.”

At least he was intent on searching. “Did Tatum mention she might meet someone there?”

“No.” His dad shook his head, barely hanging on to his composure. “We’ve searched through her things here in Denver. Nothing is missing and nothing is out of place that we can tell.”

Braden contemplated telling them about the BMW and just as quickly decided to hold off. They had enough trauma to deal with right now. He’d go search for his sister and keep them informed as much as possible. The detective may seem to be doing that for them, but Braden could not stay here and wait. He had to do something. Finding a missing person wasn’t his area of expertise, however. He wasn’t proficient in this sort of thing, especially on foreign land, but he did know someone who was.

* * *

Halfway through their Monopoly game, Arizona Ivy had had enough. “I’m twenty-five. I can make my own decisions.”

At her sharp tone, her brother’s blue eyes lifted from the board game. Blond-haired, tall and muscular, he had Viking good looks. All of her brothers and sisters had that Scandinavian appearance. “You aren’t thinking it through. As usual, you’re being impulsive.”

She didn’t respond. She had a real shot at making a good career for herself and Lincoln was stepping all over her toes. She wrote the latest gossip for a not-so-great entertainment rag. Who was divorcing whom. Who was cheating. Who was gay. She could do better than that. Her dad had helped her get a lead on a job, and Lincoln thought she was setting herself up for failure. She should stick with what she was good at, and that was entertainment.

Just because their father was a huge success as a movie producer didn’t mean his kids were destined for entertainment careers. She had her own aspirations. And that was a much more serious career than the one she currently had. If only she could find a way to prove she was capable.

“It’s still your turn,” Lincoln said.

She didn’t feel like playing anymore. “I have to go now.”

While he protested with a brotherly “Aww, come on,” she stood. Tucking her shoulder-blade-length blond hair behind one ear, she grabbed her car keys.

“Don’t be a big baby, Arizona. I tell you these things because I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Then support me.” She left his 1950s, newly remodeled kitchen. Big baby. He always treated her like a kid. His little sister. She was tired of that, too.

“I do support you. I wish you would listen to me,” he called from his seat at the table.

“I do listen to you,” she called back. “I wish you would listen to me!”

It wasn’t fair. He was her only sibling out of eight that she could talk to. Guess not anymore. He was the oldest and she was the youngest. She was an adult now. She didn’t need guidance. She could guide her own way.

Through his living room, the lack of feminine touches further sparked her ire. No flowers. No frilly decor. Just furniture and trim. She sure wished he’d find himself a woman. Then maybe he’d be too preoccupied to stick his nose in her business!

With snowballing energy, she swung the door open and came face-to-face with a man standing there, his finger poised over the doorbell. The first things that struck her were his lean, hard biceps and broad chest. Next was his military-short, dark brown hair and sexy stubble that peppered a square jaw. And last were his intense green eyes. Something about them ignited warm embers.