Hide and Seek. Desiree Holt
crap, Sheri.”
“One other thing. His house was meticulously clean, as if someone had gone through and sanitized it. But—this is weird—his computer was on his desk but the internal hard drive has been removed.”
“What? What the hell?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“What about the external hard drive? It should be right next to it.”
“Nada,” Sheri told her. “Gone, gone, gone.”
Even as she tried to dial back the sick feeling creeping through her, Devon was already dragging her suitcase out and pulling things out of her drawers and closet. She ran through her mind all the projects she had in process, which could be put on hold, who she needed to try to renegotiate deadlines with.
“I’m coming down there right now. I can’t just sit here and wait around. I’ll finish packing as soon as we hang up and be on the road right away.”
“Good. I think you need to be here. Corporate is sending some people down here and I know they’ll want to talk to you, too. Call me or come see me as soon as you get here.” Sheri paused. “We’re all over it, Devon. I just wish we had more to go on.”
“I know. It’s just…” Just that she’d already lost one parent and didn’t know if she could deal with losing another. “I think I’ll go to the house first and take a look around.”
“Sounds good. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
The minute she hung up from Sheri’s call, she packed the suitcase and threw it and her computer stuff into her car. Less than thirty minutes later she was headed south from Tampa on Interstate 75. She alternated between the threat of tears and full-blown panic as the conversation replayed like a looping tape in her head as she ate up the miles.
While she drove, she kept trying to reach her father. She had both the cell phone and the house phone on speed dial, but she got nothing. Where the hell was he? She’d been on the road for about an hour when her cell rang. The readout showed Sheri’s name so she pushed the remote button to answer.
“Have you found him?” she asked, forgoing any kind of greeting.
“I wish. No, I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
Now what?
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a couple of reporters sniffing around here, asking about your father’s disappearance.”
“How did they find out so fast?” Devon asked.
“A million ways. This is the age of the Internet. Maybe they were after your father to ask him about the death of his executive. I wouldn’t put it past them to rent a boat and go check on the search.”
“Damn, damn, damn.” Devon pounded a fist against the steering wheel.
“You said it,” Sheri agreed. “Anyway, I’ll bet anything the first story will hit the newspaper tomorrow and they’re looking for more details.”
“Oh my God. Sheri, I can’t talk to them now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep them off your back. But it’s possible if they give it a big play, someone seeing it might remember something.”
“You’re right,” Devon agreed. “I’m just not good with stuff like that and right now my mind’s in too much of a whirl to even speak coherently. I’ll probably say the wrong thing and make the situation worse.”
“I understand. We can’t shut them out, and but I will do my best to keep them off your back for as long as I can.”
“Thanks.” Devon blew out a breath.
“If they catch you, the best thing is to tell them no comment. I’m sure they’ll hit the Cole International offices in Tampa. Just let the people there make any statements.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Don’t forget. Call me or come by as soon as you get here.”
“I will.”
She disconnected the call and stuck the phone in the console.
Great. Just great. Reporters, looking for juicy scandal about the disappearance of a business giant.
Oh, Dad, how could you do this to me?
The fact was, she’d been worried about him for the past several months. Her mother’s death five years ago had thrown him for a loop. Piled on top of that were problems with Cole International. He didn’t discuss them with her but there was a hint here and there, and he was constantly on edge. Then, suddenly things seemed to be better.
She’d missed him when he moved to Arrowhead Bay, but she understood him wanting a change. The house was filled with too many memories of her mother. Plus her father said he was tired of city living.
On the trips to the little town while he was still living in Tampa, he met people. Made friends. The times she sailed down there with him she’d gotten to know people, too, and fallen in love with the small, sleepy Southern town. He was as happy as she’d seen him since her mother died.
She’d met Sheri March at one of the many festivals the town held and they’d connected at once, becoming good friends. Through Sheri she’d met a lot of other people, including the chief’s sister, Avery, who ran a private security agency. With friends to hang with and her father almost himself again she’d begun to look forward to visiting him. He loved hearing about the growth of her graphics design business and praised her for what she accomplished.
Then he’d stopped asking her about it except on rare occasions.
She tried to pinpoint just when that had all started. Almost two years ago, she thought. The tenor of the visits had changed. He had changed, becoming more tense, edgier, sometimes even withdrawn. When she asked about it, he just brushed it off. She missed their tight relationship. They had always been close, so it bothered her more than she let on.
He was abruptly more preoccupied with the business than ever, even obsessed with its financial situation. It never made sense to her because Cole International was worth millions. Whenever she asked him what was wrong, he assured her everything was fine. Just some pesky business details, he told her, that were taking a little more of his attention.
She’d continued to make sporadic visits, hoping to recapture the tight sense of family they’d had. After all, it was just the two of them now. But no matter how hard she tried, she’d felt them drifting apart more and more. There was a wall of some kind around the man she just could not breach.
When she noticed the change in him, she tried to question Cash Breeland about it. Cash was the president of the locally owned Arrowhead Bay Bank. Devon didn’t know him all that well, but he and her father had become friends even before the big move. In fact, it was Cash who had introduced her father to friends of his and drawn him into their social circle. But Cash just downplayed her questions.
“I know your daddy’s been preoccupied some,” he drawled when she asked him to meet her for coffee. “He’s just working through some knotty business problems. With all this overseas competition, some of his units aren’t performin’ the way they should. He’ll pull out of it as soon as there’s an uptick in trade.”
But he hadn’t and now he was gone.
Missing.
The word gave birth to a lot of speculation and none of it good.
She spotted the highway signs for Arrowhead Bay and gave herself a mental shake. She needed to clear the garbage out of her head until she could find out for sure what was going on.
She took the farthest exit for the town, the one that took her to the road where her father’s house was. He had built at the far end of town in the area known as Seacliff. More land, larger homes. He liked space, he’d told her. Cole International