Page 60 of Dirty Liars

“I think she’s terrified,” he replied. “And people who are terrified rarely tell the whole truth. They keep pieces back—leverage, escape routes, contingency plans.”

“Emmett Parker,” I said. “If everything she said is true then he could be in imminent danger. Chloe could have confided in him.”

“We’ve got men on him,” Jack said, but he picked up his phone. “But I’ll get a deputy to knock on his door. Maybe they can talk him into going to a safe house.”

“I’d feel a lot better if he did,” I said, watching Jack’s face as he was transferred by dispatch to the officers watching Emmett Parker’s apartment building.

The longer Jack listened, the more his expression darkened. I saw the minute clenching of his jaw and the tightening around his eyes that told me something was very wrong.

“What is it?” I asked when he finally lowered the phone. “What happened?”

Jack’s eyes met mine, and I saw a flicker of cold fury there. “Emmett is gone. They were just about to call me when dispatch connected us. One of the deputies found his apartment door open. There were signs of a struggle—overturned furniture, broken glass. Emmett was nowhere to be found.”

“How’d he get out?” I asked, my stomach dropping. “I thought you had people watching the building.”

“Plank was one of the first responding deputies set up around the perimeter. He and Chen had the front and back door of Emmett’s ground floor apartment covered,” Jack explained, his voice tight with controlled anger. “Plank said they had phone communication with Emmett when they first arrived, so they didn’t physically check to see if he was inside the apartment. He thinks Emmett must have taken that last call under duress, that someone had already taken him.”

“He could be dead already,” I said softly, the image of Max Ortega’s exploding skull flashing unbidden through my mind.

I saw the anger in Jack’s eyes deepen, his fist clenched so tight his knuckles were white. The muscle in his jaw jumped with tension.

“I know,” he said, his voice deadly calm—the kind of calm that preceded a storm. “But we’re not going to give up on him yet.”

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

Morning light streamedthrough our bedroom windows, turning dust motes into floating diamonds and illuminating the trees that were clustered around our property in a way that should have been beautiful. Instead, the brightness stabbed through my eyelids like tiny daggers, intensifying the nausea that had woken me twenty minutes earlier.

I sat on the edge of our bed, nibbling a piece of dry toast and sipping lukewarm peppermint tea, trying to breathe through the wave of sickness that had become my daily ritual. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered spectacular views of the dense trees and the distant ribbon of the Potomac.

On any other morning, I might have appreciated the way the rising sun painted everything in gold. Today, it was just another assault on my queasy stomach.

Jack emerged from the bathroom, already dressed for the day in black BDUs and a black polo shirt with the KGSO logo over the breast—he was dressed for justice. The scent of his soap and shampoo wafted across the room, but even that familiar, usually comforting smell made my stomach roll.

“Coffee’s ready downstairs,” he said, buckling his duty belt.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. “God, please don’t mention coffee.”

Jack paused, studying me. “That bad today?”

I nodded, taking another small bite of toast. “The weird thing is, the thought of coffee is absolutely repulsive. The smell is—” I cut myself off, breathing slowly through my nose. “Yesterday I would have killed for a cup. Today, the smell alone might kill me.”

“Pregnancy is very strange,” Jack said, sitting beside me on the bed, careful not to jostle the mattress. “My mom said she couldn’t stand the smell of garlic when she was pregnant with me. Dad couldn’t even eat it in the house. Then the day after I was born, she demanded Italian food with extra garlic bread.”

I smiled weakly. “Maybe don’t talk about food right now. Let’s hope my coffee aversion is temporary. I can’t imagine facing the dead every day without caffeine.”

Jack put his hand on my stomach, his fingers spread wide as if he were protecting us both. I was only a few weeks along, and wouldn’t be showing for weeks yet. But the simple gesture grounded me, a reminder that the misery would pass and something miraculous waited for us on the other side.

Jack’s face softened as he looked at my still-flat stomach, his usual sharp focus giving way to something gentler, more vulnerable. Sometimes I forgot how much he’d always wanted children, how ready he was for this next chapter of our lives.

“What’s the plan for today?” I asked, setting my mug aside.

Jack’s expression shifted into a hard line. “The search for Emmett Parker is still ongoing. I’ve got teams working in shifts—uniformed officers doing door-to-door in the neighborhood around his apartment, plainclothes checking transit hubs, hotels, the works. Derby’s monitoring cell towers and credit card activity.”

“Any leads?” I asked, my heart sinking at the grim set of his jaw.

“Nothing solid yet. At least we haven’t found another body by the side of the road.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I’m heading out to join the search team in Richmond. Richmond PD is letting us drive this operation even though it’s on their turf.”

I nodded, worry gnawing at me. “Be careful, Jack. If New Dawn Fellowship is as dangerous as Vivica says?—”

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