“Good riddance,” I said.

“This is serious. He’s disappeared, and so has Larry Wade, my boss.”

“Well, I can’t say the world isn’t a better place without both of them, but I don’t know anything about it.”

“I just want you to be careful,” she said. “It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between you and Colin. People are going to ask questions. That’s why Steve Dugan came to see me.”

“He hasn't gotten around to me yet.”

“He will. I had to tell him the truth, Talon. I told him the last time I saw Colin was that Friday night, when you and your brothers found us together. Remember? He laughed and said he was going to be in court on Monday? And then he didn’t show.”

“I just figured he thought better of it.”

“That’s what I figured too, at the time. But looking back, I was just thankful he hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t like him at all. He had pledged to make trouble, and usually, when Colin sets his mind on something, he sees it through.”

“So you think whatever happened to him happened sometime between the time we saw him on Friday and court on Monday.”

“That would be my guess. I expected Colin to show up at court.”

“You want me to look into it, blue eyes?”

“No. You have enough on your plate right now with your own therapy and running the ranch. I’ll figure this out. I’m just glad to know you have nothing to do with it.”

“I won’t deny I hate the guy, but the last time you saw him was also the last time I saw him.”

“And your brothers?”

“Blue eyes, my brothers have way more sense than to get involved in anything illegal. Trust me, I’m the one they worry about. They’re both very level-headed.”

“I believe that they are, but Colin pushed all their buttons. Even Ryan got agitated at the end.”

“True. Not much gets to Ry.”

“But Colin did.”

True. Colin had. And Ryan would do anything for me. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll talk to my brothers. But I can tell you with ninety-nine point nine percent accuracy that they had nothing to do with him disappearing.”

“Okay, good.”

“And what’s this about your boss missing?”

“Yeah. It’s the weirdest thing. He left a little bit early Friday, to take his grandkids somewhere. And then I was almost sure I saw him talking to Nico in the hallway at the hospital around midnight that night. But in a flash they were both gone, so I could have been mistaken. I haven’t seen either one of them since.”

I stiffened again. Larry Wade. I knew very little about him, other than he’d come to town and been appointed city attorney when the old one retired. But if he was hanging with Nico Kostas… My spine went cold.

Jade went on, “Anyway, the mayor is pissed that nobody can find him. In fact, he made me acting city attorney for the time being.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

She let out a laugh. “I’ll say. There will be no more bending of ethics with me in charge.”

“Well, it was his bending of ethics that got me off with Colin.”

“True enough. But Talon, he’s a sleaze—” She stopped abruptly, as if there was something else she wanted to say but thought better of it.

“And?” I pushed.

“And…what?”

“Never mind.”

As curious as I was, she hadn’t pushed me on things I wasn’t ready to talk about, so I would not push her.

Then she jerked upward into a sitting position. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You don’t think Colin’s disappearance and Larry’s disappearance are related, do you?”

“I don’t see why they would be. Colin disappeared way before Larry.”

“It’s just that…something is so weird about all of this. Why would Larry just fall off the edge of the earth? He had a good thing going as city attorney. Yeah, he’s a sleaze ball, but as far as I could tell, he had a great relationship with his grandkids. Why would he leave all of that behind?”

“I don’t know, blue eyes. But I can give you the name of a few really good PIs if you want to investigate it.”

“I have everything at my disposal at the city attorney’s office. I can investigate it myself.” She lay back down, snuggling into my arms. “Talon, will you stay with me tonight?”

And I stiffened once more. She was asking me for the one thing I couldn’t give her. “Blue eyes, I can’t. And you know why.”

 

My guts were churning as I gripped the arms of the hunter-green chair. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jade’s mother’s boyfriend, the man named Nico Kostas. I had Googled him when I returned home.

The Internet held precious little about the man, considering he was supposedly a politician.

“You seem a little more agitated than usual today,” Dr. Carmichael remarked.

I didn’t know where to begin. “Remember the tattoo? The image of a phoenix that Jade wanted to get permanently inked on her body?”

She nodded.

“I found something out last night. She didn’t just find the image in a book. She saw it on a person. On a person’s forearm.”

Dr. Carmichael widened her green eyes. “Whose?”

“Her mother’s boyfriend. His name is Nico Kostas, and he’s supposedly a senator from Iowa, but he’s lying. There’s no record of him anywhere.” I trembled. “I met him. I shook his motherfucking hand.”

“I understand this is difficult for you. But you know, Talon, just because this person had the same tattoo on his forearm as the one you remember doesn’t mean he’s the same person who abducted and tortured you.”

I knew that. I knew with my objective brain that she spoke the truth. But something niggled at the back of my neck. This was related. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. “Doc, it just all seems so eerie to me. That he would have the same tattoo that I remember on the same part of his body—his left forearm.”

“Yes, I can see that it’s very eerie,” she said. “But still, you have no evidence—”

“Damn it!” My fist came down on the leather of the chair. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just know. I know in the depths of my soul that this guy is the guy.”