hidden away from the world.
Now he couldn’t sleep in his bed without missing the feel of her lying next to him. He couldn’t walk into the kitchen without picturing her standing at the center island in one of his discarded dress shirts, pouring fresh glasses of wine or nibbling on grapes from the fruit bowl.
The memory of her voice echoed off the walls.
The scent of her perfume hung in the air.
The home he’d once loved had turned into a bitter reminder of the woman who was at this very moment walking down the aisle into the arms of another man.
The pencil in his hand snapped. He hadn’t even realized he was holding the thing, and counted himself lucky it wasn’t the pen from his Montblanc set or the crystal letter opener instead.
Making a concerted effort to unlock his knuckles and loosen his grip, he blew out a breath. He might not be happy about Juliet’s decision, but it was hers to make. Her decision, her mistake.
And it was well past time that he put their ill-fated affair behind him and get his head back on business. He hadn’t built McCormack Investigations into a multimillion-dollar corporation by letting himself be distracted. Especially by a woman, no matter how beautiful or smart or refined she might be.
For the fourth or fifth time since he’d gotten to the office, the phone rang. Not his receptionist’s line or one of the others on the floor, but his direct line. Who would be calling him here, at this number, on a Saturday?
Annoyed now by more than just the ringing phone, he snatched it up and snapped, “What?”
There was a slight pause and then a deep male voice came on the line. “Mr. McCormack. It’s Glenn from the front desk.”
An image of the tall, wide-shouldered security guard from the building’s main lobby flashed into his head, and Reid immediately regretted his short tone.
“Yes, Glenn. I’m sorry, what can I do for you?”
“There are a couple young women down here insisting they need to see you. I told them you weren’t in today, but they don’t seem to believe me,” he added, a touch of humor tingeing the words.
“Who are they?” Reid asked.
“Lily and Zoe Zaccaro. They say they’ve been calling you all morning, but you didn’t answer.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. So that explained the incessant ringing of his private line. But if there was anything he didn’t need today, especially in his current dark mood, it was these two walking blond disasters.
Okay, so maybe “disaster” was a bit harsh. He’d never even met the youngest Zaccaro sister, Zoe, though the stories he’d heard about her led him to believe she was the wildest of the three.
But Lily was the one who’d dragged him into the crazy world of the Zaccaro trio to begin with. Theft and corporate espionage and a disappearance that had turned out to be an amateur undercover investigation, and finally his introduction to Juliet.
If Lily had never walked into his office, he’d be a happier man today, that was for damn sure. She’d brought him The Case That Wouldn’t End and led him straight down the path to personal misery.
He didn’t say that aloud, of course, and didn’t tell Glenn to send them away. Instead, he said, “Send them up” and spent the few minutes before their arrival tamping down his temper and schooling his features. When the door to his office opened and the two sisters bustled in, he was the epitome of calm professionalism.
The two women, on the other hand, were a whirlwind of yellow taffeta, blond hair and tear-streaked faces. They let out twin huffs of relief that they’d finally reached him after numerous attempts and flopped into the guest chairs directly in front of his desk.
“Thank God,” Lily sighed at the same time Zoe muttered, “It’s about time.”
Reid’s lips twitched at the younger sister’s cheekiness, but he kept his expression blank.
“Ladies,” he greeted them in a clipped voice.
It was the weekend, for heaven’s sake. There was nothing so pressing in Lily’s ongoing design theft case that they needed to show up at his office on a Saturday, and he didn’t want them thinking this sort of behavior should be repeated.
And didn’t they have a wedding to attend in their fluffy, over-the-top bridesmaid gowns? Their sister’s wedding, to be specific.
“This is rather unorthodox. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Help!” they exclaimed at exactly the same time. They weren’t twins, Reid knew, but damned if they couldn’t pass as mirror images when they acted like this.
Taking the lead, Lily leaned forward slightly. “You have to help us,” she said again. “I know it’s a weekend. I know you’ve probably had it up to your eyeballs with us by now.”
Boy, she’d hit the nail on the head with that one.
“But we don’t know what else to do.”
“About what?” he asked calmly.
“She’s missing!” This from Zoe, whose eyes were wide and glistening.
Reid’s own eyes narrowed. A niggle of foreboding began to tickle at the nape of his neck. “Who?”
“Juliet,” Lily supplied. Her voice had evened out a bit, as though she was growing calmer now that she knew she had the ear of a private investigator. Especially one who’d had dealings with their family before.
Reid didn’t know how much Juliet’s sisters knew about her involvement with him. Did they know about the affair? Had Juliet confided in them? Or had they turned to him simply because of who he was and the work he’d done for them in the past?
Taking a deep breath, Lily continued. “Juliet disappeared from the church. From her wedding. We don’t know what happened. She was in her gown. Her hair and makeup were done. I checked on her and told her everything was ready to go, and then she was just...gone. She never came out, even though we were all waiting for her at the back of the church.”
She dropped her gaze, plucking at the folds of her fluffy yellow skirt. “I went to check on her again,” Lily said softly, “but she wasn’t there.”
Tears lined her lower lashes as she raised her gaze to his. “There was no note, no hint of what might have happened to her.”
Reid’s stomach clenched. “Do you think she ran away?”
He didn’t let himself hope for that, at least not on a personal level. He’d been down that road before and ended up deeply disappointed. But if she hadn’t run off on her own, the other possibilities were too frightening to contemplate.
“We don’t know,” Lily responded.
“What about the fiancé?” He wasn’t going to use the bastard’s name. And God help him if the jerk had done anything to Juliet. Reid would hunt him down and rip him limb from limb.
Zoe
