Page 31 of A Colby Christmas Rescue

They went back in the house and watched the security footage. Poe went into the woods, but he never came out.

This was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Jamie paced the floor. Where would he have gone? She supposed he could have cut left and come out around one of the other houses.

“I need to check with the neighbors.” That was the only possible next move.

“You can’t do that,” Abi argued. “We cannot call attention to ourselves.”

“I don’t care. I need to find my partner—my friend.”

Abi held up his hands. “What you need is coffee.”

Had he lost his mind? “I don’t need coffee.”

He poured a cup and placed it on the island. “Just sit down and drink. We need to think.”

She took a breath and then did as he asked. She slid onto a stool and picked up the cup. She hadn’t had any coffee this morning and suddenly she needed the caffeine desperately.

“First,” Abi suggested, “let’s approach this logically.”

She drank from the cup rather than taking a bite out of his head.

“Let’s consider the reasons Poe would leave.” He gestured to her. “You know him better than me. What do you think?”

“Someone may have called him with information he couldn’t ignore.”

“Do you have the pass code for his phone so we can see who he has spoken to?”

She made a face. “If I did I would have already checked. All I saw were the latest notifications and that was where I called him. To see beyond that I would need the pass code.”

“We can assume someone may have called him not only with news he couldn’t ignore, but also with something he didn’t feel he could share. Does he have family who may have needed his help?”

Jamie shook her head. “No one he’s close to.”

“What about your employer?”

“Maybe. But I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have told me.” That was the part that made no sense at all. Poe would not just leave like this...not while leaving her behind.

“Then we have to assume it’s someone from this end.”

She was surprised that Abi made the statement. “Is there someone who wanted to stop this mission? Maybe someone who feels it’s the wrong move?”

“That’s always possible, but I was not informed of this if that is the case. I can make some calls. See if there’s something I should know. Check with my people to see if he’s left the area.”

Why the hell didn’t he just say that already?

“I would appreciate that.” She took a breath, forced her nerves to calm. “He wouldn’t leave like this without telling me unless he felt there was no other option.”

“Drink your coffee,” Abi said again. “I’ll make some calls.”

He walked outside onto the patio. Jamie watched and finished off her coffee. There was a chance Poe could have decided to take a risk to put protective measures in place. Not that she was going to share this with Abi. Poe didn’t trust Abi. He was concerned about how this would shake down and, in Jamie’s opinion, there was reason to be concerned. Poe may have believed that the best way to head off trouble was for him to bow out, making it look as if it was not voluntary. Then he would take up a position to watch, to be in place in the event Jamie needed an extraction.

It was an option they always discussed for their joint missions. It wasn’t one they’d ever had to use. More important, they had not talked about the option in this situation.

Whatever the case, the fact that he didn’t share his decision with her may have been to allow her to look completely uninvolved to Abi.

If that wasn’t the case, then something bad had happened to Poe and Jamie was really worried. The possibility that Abi could be involved was all the more troubling.

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