Page 72 of Unravel You

The man was as wide as he was tall. Why the hell had he not been able to keep Valentina safe? “Yes. Come in.” I gestured for him to sit on the seat across from my desk. “It’s Will, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can’t fire him. He doesn’t even work for you.” Ana rushed in and shut the door behind her. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she’d run all the way from her house.

The thought had crossed my mind. Someone like Will with his experience should have known better. Letting Valentina go on her own had been a huge mistake on his part.

“It’s okay, Ms. Copenhaver.” Will put up his hand.

“No, it’s not. I asked you to drive Valentina. You shouldn’t have to lose your job for following my orders.” She turned her blue gaze toward me. “If you’d been more forthcoming with Valentina, she would’ve trusted you with this. You can’t put this on Will.”

In all the time I’d known Ana, I’d never seen her raise her voice like this or look at me with fire in her eyes. “I’m not firing Will. Did Valentina tell you about Alex?”

“She said he was Max’s dad.”

“Right. He’s also the reason why Valentina still has nightmares. He’s a sociopath who gets his kicks from hurting women.”

She raised her eyebrows. Obviously, Valentina hadn’t mentioned all the details about Alex. She’d known that if Ana found out the truth about that asshole, she never would have let her driver take Valentina to the meeting place. Ana was right about one thing, though. If I hadn’t kept secrets from Valentina, she would have trusted me with Max’s life. She would have known that he was as important to me as she was. No doubt she’d considered the idea that I’d put her safety over his.

“I didn’t know that.”

I gripped my mobile. The image of Valentina’s pained expression flashed in my head. What would Ana think if I showed her that picture? She didn’t need to see that. I tapped on the screen and deleted the picture. Bridget knew exactly how to push my buttons. This image was just that—a button.

“What’s done is done. Now I need Will to help me identify their getaway car.” I handed Will the iPad with the surveillance videos from the corner where he’d dropped her off. “You mentioned she walked across the street and disappeared from there?”

“Yes, sir. There’s a warehouse beyond the small parking lot on Irwin Street. I would’ve lured her there too.”

I slow-blinked, pushing the image of Alex’s mouth on her neck out of my mind. Where was she now? “That video is from the twenty minutes you were there. Do you remember anything that can help us identify the car?”

The creases across his forehead deepened as he concentrated on the low-quality lead we had. “That intersection was crowded with both pedestrians and cars. This sedan.” He tapped on the screen. “At the time, I thought the driver was just drunk, honking to get people out of the way. He was in a hurry to get past the Stop sign.”

I grabbed the device from him and moved the counter back to see the car again. It’d gone out of the parking lot and hung a left on Irwin toward Lake Avenue. Assuming Valentina was in the car. A dark sedan. That was almost nothing to go on, but it was a step in the right direction.

The governor’s office had been very accommodating in providing access to their traffic cameras to my guys. I picked up the phone and called the team I had working on tracing Alex’s and Bridget’s devices. Alex and Bridget had been careful to go dark after I ran into Alex at the pub. But they were bound to make a mistake sooner or later.

“The feed you sent me. There’s a black car crossing the intersection at eleven sixteen. See where it’s headed.”

“That’s going to take a long time if we don’t know which way it went.”

My frustration level had reached its limit last night when I found out Valentina had gone after Alex on her own and that Ana had helped her. “I know that, but unless you have a better idea, start with Lake Avenue.”

“I’m on it.”

I waited for the team to confirm they had a visual on the video, then dropped the speaker phone on the cradle. This waiting game had my adrenaline pumping hard through my body. How the fuck did we get here? How did Bridget and Alex manage to get a note to Valentina? For Christ’s sake, they’d left it on her vanity dresser.

“Thanks, Will. You can leave. If you think of anything else, let me know.”

“Of course.” He gave Ana a quick nod and left.

“I’m sorry.” Now that Will’s job wasn’t on the chopping block, Ana’s voice had returned to its normal sweet tone.

“You didn’t talk to Bridget last night? Did you?”

“What? No. Do you seriously think I helped her get Valentina out of the house?”

Yes, the thought had crossed my mind. I’d also considered Mom had done it. Someone in this house had helped Bridget. “The head of security said he found one of our guys knocked out near the property line. The guard later confirmed he’d seen Bridget leaving the grounds through your gardens.”

“I didn’t see her. I wasn’t even home. I was here with the other guests.”

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