Page 11 of Phoenix Rising

The general manager studied him before nodding. “Okay. I believe you. You will let me know if I need to take precautions?”

“Absolutely.”

Ms. Houseman rose. “All right, then. If we can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll retrieve Ms. Stockton’s things for you now.” They watched her leave the office, not speaking until she returned with a mid-sized rolling suitcase. “Housekeeping put all her belongings in here.”

Reese stood and took possession of the handle. “Thank you. We’ll let you know if we have questions.”

Becky had their key cards waiting for them when they left Ms. Houseman’s office. A baggage porter had already loaded their luggage onto a cart. Reese added Paige’s to the pile. Audria led the way to the elevator, and they rode up to their suite on the third floor, making small talk with the attendant, who raved about the many attractions around the area.

Audria tapped her key against the reader when they arrived at their room, and a green light snapped on. She turned the handle and entered, holding the door so the porter could push the cart inside. The luxurious room was dominated by the king-sized bed covered with a white down comforter and several decorative pillows. Windows showcased a view of the red rocks that surrounded Sedona.

As soon as their bags were stacked inside the closet, Reese tipped the man and waited for him to leave before retrieving Paige’s case. He rolled it to the bed and lifted it onto the mattress.

“It’s not very heavy. I was hoping she’d left her laptop.” He pulled the tab to unzip the canvas flap emblazoned with the iconic Louis Vuitton logo. Reese assumed her luggage was probably worth thousands of dollars. Inside was an assortment of clothes and shoes. No toiletries.

“She had another bag,” Audria guessed, echoing his thoughts.

“That would go along with her being undercover and using this hotel as a home base.”

“This makes me think your wife was right. Something has happened to Paige. Otherwise, she’d have contacted the resort to extend her reservation.”

“Ex-wife.” The correction was automatic by now. It irked him that Audria continued to push, but he refused to take the bait.

Audria reached into a pocket and withdrew a selection of flyers. “Reese, look at these.” After examining them, she spread them on the comforter and removed four from the pile. “She circled these and crossed out the others.”

Reese studied the leaflets. One was a schedule for intense yoga sessions, another for a seminar that promoted spiritual awakening, and the third touted the benefits of hypnosis. The final brochure was colorful and looked like kids had doodled all over it, but it was for a class that encouraged participants to connect with their inner child. Reese was baffled.

“We’ll need to check each one,” Audria decided. “There must be a reason she signaled those four out.”

None of the classes seemed to connect, but Audria was right. These had to be something Paige had been investigating. At least it was a starting point, whereas before, they had nada.

Nothing else inside the suitcase indicated where Paige might have gone or what might have happened to her. Reese had been skeptical at first, but now it seemed Gennie might’ve been correct.

Reese winced when Audria called her office and gave them the names of the places on the brochures to see if Paige had signed up with any of them. That would require hacking into accounts, so he pretended he didn’t know what she was doing. They were dancing a thin line between legal and illegal. He wasn’t here as an official agent of the government, so he’d let Audria’s office do their thing.

Five minutes later, she announced, “No one named Paige Stockton registered for any classes.”

“That means she’s using an alias. I’ll call Gennie and ask if she knows any of Paige’s fake names.”

Reese opened the sliding glass doors and stepped out on the balcony before punching in his ex-wife’s number.

Chapter Four

Audria watched Reese talk on his phone, fighting the jealousy that crept up out of nowhere that he was speaking to his former wife. It was ridiculous. The man was an associate, nothing more. He’d been her boss. Inappropriate feelings had no business creeping into the relationship.

She concentrated on the flyers again. One held the key to finding out what had happened to Paige Stockton. Was she undercover and unable to contact anyone? Or had something nefarious occurred? Before they’d landed in Arizona, Audria had thought it was the former. After discovering Paige had never reached out to the resort to extend her stay or pick up her effects, Audria now leaned toward the latter.

After perusing each one, front to back, she concluded that the only thing they had in common was that men were in charge. That led her to believe Paige had been looking for someone or something and thought one of these four males would have the answer. It was only a theory, but it gave them something to focus on.

By the time Reese finished his phone call—how long did it take to ask about aliases, anyway?—she’d registered them for a yoga class with Yogi Vishnu and booked a hypnosis session with a Mr. Akers, first name unknown.

Audria was looking forward to the yoga class in the morning. Fitness had always been essential to her. After resigning from the FBI, she’d taken a job at Jumping Jac’s, a local club owned by one of COBRA Securities’ first clients, though she hadn’t known that at the time. One of the major benefits of working at a gym was that it had allowed her to keep in shape for triathlons, which was one of her passions. There, she’d met Melanie Delgado and struck up a friendship. When Melanie’s life had been in danger, Audria had stepped up to help her, and she’d discovered COBRA Securities for the first time. When she was offered a position, she couldn’t accept fast enough. Since then, she hadn’t been able to train for triathlons since she’d been busy trying to pass the grueling physical and mental tests to become an agent.

The slider slicked open, and she glanced up to see Reese stepping inside. Her breath caught, and her heart skipped a beat. She should be used to it by now—it happened every time she saw him.

“Gennie didn’t know what names Paige used, only that she changed them frequently.”

“That helps not at all.”

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