than she’d been since her roommate had gone missing.
The secondary fact that O’Neill was muscular, ruggedly handsome and skilled with his hands made Grace quiver inside. Not that he’d use those hands on her. Preferably, he’d use them to take down whoever had snatched Riley and make him pay for any harm that might have come to her friend.
“Where do you want to start?” he asked.
“Where she works,” Grace said. “They wouldn’t let me in last night.”
“We can do a preliminary call to her supervisor and ask what time she actually walked out of the building,” O’Neill said.
Grace nodded. “And if that doesn’t help, we can ask the people at the front desk when she came through,” Grace suggested.
“After that?” he asked.
“I don’t know what else to do other than canvass the train station at the time she would have been there. I have a recent photograph of her on my cell phone. We can ask people getting on and off the train if they saw her last night.”
O’Neill led the way to the elevator, punched the down button and then turned to face her. “We can also check with the train service to see if they have video cameras and historical data we can go through.”
“Good thinking,” Grace said.
The elevator door slid open and Grace stepped inside.
Her newly assigned private investigator stepped in beside her.
O’Neill’s broad shoulders made the elevator feel so much smaller and seemed to suck the air right out of her lungs.
She focused on what was important, her missing roommate. But that didn’t keep the heat from rising beneath the starched collar of her shirt.
Sure, a man like O’Neill could turn any woman’s head. But Grace had been divorced for three years, and her husband had been hot. Maybe not muscular, he-man hot like O’Neill, but he’d turned his share of heads and ruffled a few female skirts before he’d asked Grace to marry him.
She’d been flattered and fancied herself in love with him. And then he’d changed. Perhaps changed wasn’t exactly right. His true colors came through. Mitchell had been full of himself and wrapped up in his business as a high-powered financial planner. He’d wanted everything his way, never considering Grace’s needs and desires. She’d gone along with his plans at first, but no more. She wouldn’t be cowed by any man ever again.
Grace could admire the beauty of nature in a handsome man, but she didn’t have to pluck the flower or sip the nectar. She performed an internal eye-roll. As she’d told Mrs. Halverson, she had to get her head on straight. What was important was finding Riley.
The elevator door opened and Grace practically jumped out. As she did, her cell phone rang. Her heart racing, she dug in her purse, her hands shaking so much that she couldn’t get them to work.
“Good grief,” Declan said. “Give it to me.” He took the purse, dug his hand in, found the phone and hit the answer key. Then he handed it to Grace.
She shot a glance at the screen but didn’t recognize the number. Grace pressed the phone to her ear, praying whoever it was would have news of her friend. “Hello?”
“Grace Lawrence?”
“That’s me.”
“This is Sergeant Kronkski with the DC Metropolitan Police Department.”
Grace’s heart stopped beating. “Go on,” she whispered, her breath lodging like a knot in her throat.
“We just wanted to keep you up to date on your missing person’s report.”
“Have you found Riley?” she asked, her hand gripping the cell phone tightly.
“No, ma’am. We haven’t. You said the last place you had contact with her was from her place of employment yesterday?”
“That’s right. I told the officer on duty that last night.”
“We sent a unit by her office complex this morning. They have no record of her being at work yesterday. She didn’t clock in.”
Grace frowned, her gaze going to Declan.
He took the phone and punched the speaker key before handing it back to her.
“What do you mean, she never clocked in? She texted me from work yesterday morning. Riley never missed a day of work, even when she was sick.”
“That’s what we were told. Her supervisor confirmed she never arrived at the office yesterday.”
“That can’t be right,” Grace said, shaking her head, though the sergeant wouldn’t see the effect. “She went to work like always and texted me that she would be leaving on time.”
“Some people live secret lives,” the sergeant said. “Perhaps she has another job you don’t know about?”
“No way. Riley doesn’t keep secrets from me. We’re friends from our first year in college.”
“I can only tell you what we learned,” the sergeant said. “Is there anywhere else she might have gone? To see family? A friend? A boyfriend?”
Grace’s lips pressed together. “She said she was coming home. She has no other family in the country but me, her roommate. Her parents are on a world cruise, out of touch most of the time. She’s not married and, as far as I know, she doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Okay, I get it,” the sergeant said. “But these are the questions I have to ask. More often than not, missing people haven’t been abducted. They’ve ducked out of sight, either running from the law or needing some space.”
“I know my roommate,” Grace said. “She wouldn’t have told me she was coming home and then not shown up without calling to say why. She’s conscientious and considerate like that. If she’d been detained or changed her mind, she would have called or texted me to let me know she was all right.”
“I’m sorry we don’t have more news, but I wanted to let you know where we stood. We have her picture out to all the street units now. If they see her, you’ll be notified.”
Grace let go of the breath she’d been holding. Getting mad at the cops wasn’t conducive to securing their help in finding Riley. Grace sucked it up and thanked the sergeant. “I appreciate the update and look forward to hearing from you soon.” Really soon. Riley’s life could depend on it.
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