Page 75 of Mile High Baby

Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.

But it had to. There was no scenario in which I could keep Henry as a friend and love Victoria as my partner. In the middle of the night, I had moments in which I thought I should choose Victoria over Henry. But then I remembered that for her, our little affair was an adventure.

Perhaps this was God's way of punishing me for the cavalier way I went through life, particularly related to women. I'd never fucked with a woman's heart or had been cruel to them, Lorraine notwithstanding, considering she stole from me. But perhaps my lifestyle offended God.

Then again, the pain that had taken up residence in my chest was a reminder of why I had chosen to live my life the way I had. I was experiencing the very thing I had been trying to avoid.

"Alex?"

Goddammit, my brain was elsewhere again. I turned to Dax. "Yeah?"

“Elliott met with the D.A. today, who is very interested in what we’ve brought him so far, but he’s still hemming and hawing over pursuing prosecution."

"Did he at least say he was going to look into what we'd found?"

Dax nodded. "The other thing is, my wife and I are going to be heading home in a couple of days. The way Elliott's talking, it sounds like that's the timeframe we have on this little investigation. Of course, all the protection will remain in place for Banion, but this plan to put Pitney away has only about seventy-two hours left."

"Then we'd better start moving faster." My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket, seeing Henry's name on the screen. At the same time, a second call was coming in from Ian. "Can you call Ian and see what he needs? I want to take this from Henry."

Dax nodded, pulling his phone from his pocket as he turned to leave me in my area I set up in a conference room at Saint Security.

I poked the answer button. "Henry."

"Tell me she's with you."

Immediately, my heart jackhammered in my chest. The panic in Henry's voice, along with his inquiring about Victoria, was all it took to know that something was seriously wrong. "Victoria's not with me. She's at home with you."

"We can't find her anywhere.”

Emotion and panic burst through me, surprising me with its intensity. I sucked in a deep breath to calm my nerves and be the professional crisis manager that I was. Jesus fuck. Victoria was gone?

“Calm down, Henry. Tell me what's going on."

"I thought she was working in her office, but when she didn’t come down to dinner, I had Mrs. Tillis go up and check on her, but she wasn't there. She wasn't in her room. She's not anywhere in the house and she’s not answering her phone. That’s not like her, Alex. She wouldn’t let me worry like this."

I stepped out into the hall and waved my hand toward the woman working on a computer in one of the cubicles, planning to have her put out a call to search for Victoria.

"Alex.”

I whirled around to see Dax. "Ian says Victoria's gone missing."

Fuck, fuck, fuck. "I'm on my way, Henry. We'll find her." And when I did, I was going to give her a good tongue lashing because I had no doubt that she disappeared because she wanted to. There is no way anybody could've abducted her from the house, which meant she'd snuck away. Where would she go?

"We need someone to go to her place, and I need Samantha Layton's phone number." Her home and Samantha’s were the two obvious places, so I’d start there.

Dax was off to send someone to her apartment. I found Samantha’s number and a few minutes later had her on the line, asking if she’d seen or heard from Victoria.

"Yes, Tori came by earlier today. But she left a little before dinner. Why?"

I looked at my watch, realizing that the ride from Samantha's house to Victoria's was only about twenty minutes, less if traffic wasn’t too bad. Now it was nearly an hour later. "Did she say she was going anywhere else besides her father’s home?"

"No." Concern grew in Samantha's voice. "She didn’t want anyone to notice she was gone, so she was in a rush to get back. She ordered a car and went home."

"What sort of car?" I grabbed a sheet of paper from a nearby desk to jot down Samantha’s information.

"The usual black sedan. What's going on?"

I put a note to contact all the private car services to see who picked Victoria up. I added the ride share companies as well. "Victoria hasn't come home and she's not answering her phone."