Page 69 of The Last Close Call

“Sammy?”

Sighing, she set her drink on a side table and stepped out, pulling the door shut behind her.

The patio felt like ice beneath her feet, and she crept toward the pool. Sam wasn’t in the patch of grass. Or the flower bed. Or sniffing the rosebushes around the gazebo.

She ventured to the edge of the patio and looked around the corner to the courtyard off the bedroom where she and Michael had imagined having breakfast on Sunday mornings—Belgian waffles with bacon, fresh-squeezed orange juice, the works.

They’d lived here two years, and they’d never done it once.

“Sam!” she trilled, not giving a damn if she woke up her neighbor now. He’d fired up his Ferrari on Saturday mornings more times than she could count.

A wind whipped up, and Joy clutched her arms around herself as she walked back across the patio. Where the hell was he? She picked her way across the flagstones that made a path to the herb garden, which was nothing more than a sad mound of dirt at the moment.

He wasn’t back there. She looked around the side yard, even glancing at the inky darkness of the pool.

Squeeeeak-bang!

She jumped as the gate slammed shut beside the garage. Alarm filled her as she followed the flagstone path around the corner. Damn it. How had that gate gotten open? She kept it closed, always, because if it was ever left even slightly ajar, the dogs would make a run for it.

“Sam! Come here right this minute!”

Her stomach clenched. She’d had way too many vodkas to go driving around looking for him.

A thick tangle of vines covered the narrow passage behind the garage. She ducked under the branches, barely able to see anything. Nearing the trash cans, she smelled garbage and the faint trace of skunk.

“Ouch!” She snagged her sleeve on something and jerked it free. “Damn it.” She clutched her hand to her shoulder and felt a tear in the fabric. Great. Now she had not only a stubbed toe but a cut arm. And a hole in her favorite pj’s.

She emerged from the viny tunnel into the side yard, where a floodlight illuminated a pair of trash cans.

The gate blew open with a squeak and smacked against the fence.

Fear gripped her as she jogged past the trash cans. She rushed through the open gate and looked down the long driveway. But she knew it was hopeless.

Sam was gone.

***

Jack caught Bryan’s attention as he entered the bar.

“Spurs are up,” Jack said as Bryan pulled out the empty stool beside him.

“Sorry, I’m late. They were packed tonight.”

“Where were you?”

“The Octagon.”

Bryan took jujitsu at a gym on the south side of town, and he’d been asking Jack to join him for more than a year.

“You should come sometime.”

“Maybe I will,” Jack said, although he doubted it. He preferred solo sports like running and mountain biking.

Not that he’d been on his bike lately. It had been weeks. But biking was time-consuming, and it was easier just to throw on his shoes and pound out a few miles.

The bartender put a pint-size pilsner in front of Bryan, and he thanked her with a nod.

“So.” Bryan took a sip. “How’s it going with Rowan? I thought maybe she’d be here tonight.”

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