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“Please don’t put yourself in danger,” she begged. “The police are working on this.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay. You know if the roles were reversed, Yasmine wouldn’t rest until she got to the bottom of it.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick nodded. “I know.”

I released her hand, reached into my bag, and pulled out a notepad—I always carried one around in case I needed to jot anything down while doing some research.

After scribbling my number, I held the piece of paper out to her. “If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll come back soon to check in on her, but I’m always available, even if you just want to talk.”

She took the paper, clutched it in her hand, and whispered, “Thank you, Alana. Please keep yourself safe.”

“I will.”

With that, I gave Yasmine one last look before I turned and walked out of the room. It was time to get to work.

TWO

Ty

Two Weeks Later

“Thanks for your help today.”

I glanced over at my friend and coworker, Forrest, and smiled. “It was no problem. I’m glad I finished up on my other project yesterday, so I could help you out today. The timing worked out great.”

Forrest and I stepped out into the parking lot to head toward our vehicles. It was Friday, and we’d just completed the installation of a complex security system at a local business.

“It really did. I was convinced I was going to have to tell Daisy that we’d need to cancel our plans for tonight, because there was no chance that I was going to finish that system up at a reasonable time on my own,” Forrest returned.

“Do you two have big plans for this weekend?”

Forrest sent a disbelieving look my way and countered, “You’ve met Daisy, right?”

I chuckled. If there was one thing that had become abundantly clear, it was that Daisy and Forrest were made foreach other. They were both adventure seekers, always looking for the next fun thing to do. “Fair enough.”

“What about you? Got anything going on this weekend?”

I sighed and shook my head. “Nothing exciting.”

“No? Not even dinner plans?”

“Nope. Evangeline is in the home stretch with studying for her CFP exam.”

“That’s right. I remember you mentioning that. When’s the test?”

Forrest and I had come to a halt in front of our vehicles. We’d both parked in the visitors’ lot and were a space away from one another.

“Next Thursday.”

“Oh, that’s not bad. Less than a week. You can celebrate next weekend, then,” he reasoned.

I nodded my agreement. “Yeah, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. We’ve barely seen each other, because she’s been putting so much time into studying. But I’m proud of her for working so hard. It’s going to be worth it in the end.”

Evangeline and I had been seeing each other for just shy of a year. While things were going well between us, there had been a shift lately. Evangeline was working so hard toward accomplishing her career goals, and the sad result was that we just didn’t have the same time together that we’d had in the beginning of our relationship. We’d only seen one another a handful of times over the last five weeks with her needing to study so much, so it was safe to say I was looking forward to her finally taking the exam in a few days. I missed her terribly.

Like everything else, though, I realized it all came down to timing. Once she got through this exam, things would settle down a bit for her, and we’d be able to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

“Take dinner.”

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