Page 72 of Until The Stars Don't Shine

“It’s Turner. Where’s Mace?” Mace was their codename for Lexi in the event their airwaves were hacked from someone on the outside, something that could occasionally happen.

“She’s in her room. Stan over.”

He should have felt relieved by that, but something wasn’t right. Why would she be in her room when she was supposed to be announcing the next event?

“Do you have eyes on her Stan?”

“No, but I’m right here. I’ll check,” Stan began then cursed, sounding gravely concerned. “Her room’s empty. It looks like there’s been a struggle.”

The instant panic his words caused made him breathless. He started for her wing of the house, but his way was blocked by a sea of people.

“Move!” He demanded, but either they hadn’t heard him or simply didn’t think it applied to them. He snapped out a command. “Bud, bark!”

His dog began barking at the top of his lungs. While the crowd hadn’t been concerned with his demands, they were certainly listening to his dog. They separated. He barreled through the path they created for him, bolting to Lexi’s room to find Stan waiting. His face was ashen.

“There was a disturbance on the terrace. I went to check it. I only left her alone for a few seconds, Kane. One, two minutes, tops.”

Kane didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t. He went into her room, assessing the area fast.

The chair by the vanity table was upturned and the clutch lay open on the carpet a few feet beside the heels she had worn. Pulse racing, he sprinted to her clutch to find most of its contents had spilled around it.

But no panic button.

Hope flared in his chest, but then he noticed the spread of the cosmetics. They looked to have fallen out of the clutch by force, sending the items scattering across the floor toward a dresser in the corner.

On a hunch, he got down to floor level to look beneath the gap of the dresser.

There it was, the one thing he was hoping not to find.

Reading his stiff body language, Stan asked, “What is it?”

Kane didn’t reply. He picked up the panic button, showed it to him.

Stan’s face turned a paler shade of gray.

The room swam as terror clawed its way into Kane’s throat.

Each of the things taken in isolation wasn’t a cause for alarm, but all of them put together painted a harrowing picture. Bud whined, sensing his distress.

“Who was on the terrace?” His mind kicked into automatic work gear. If he focused on the facts, the pieces of the puzzle, he could keep that desperate fear that wanted to take over at bay.

Maybe.

“Just a couple wanting a corner to fool around in.” Stan paused, the full realization of what had happened hitting him. “She said she was fine. She said she wanted a few minutes alone. I even checked she had her panic button.”

Kane couldn’t lay into him, not when he himself was to blame. He shouldn’t have left her safety to anyone else — not even Stan — even when he thought Mandy was the one at risk.

This was his fault.

Desperate to make amends, to find Lexi, Stan jumped into rescue mode.

“I’ll check the cameras, notify our men. Do we tell the parents yet?”

“No.” Kane’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Let Bud have a go at finding her first.”

It was possible that Lexi was still on the property, and if that was the case, his dog was their best bet. There was no point in frightening her parents before they had performed a search.

He held one of her heels under Bud’s nose. “Find her. Find Lexi!”

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