Page 100 of Ten Years and Then…
Nobody on the team asked if he’d heard from her. And every time he checked the cell phone for messages, they all pretended not to notice.
After the fourth game, Blue suggested going back to the Marriott for a late dinner at the hotel restaurant. It seemed as good an idea as any, so Daniel settled up the bill using the company card—he could explain it to Mr. Kincaid as team-building—and took Red back in a taxi while the rest of the team walked the five blocks.
When they got there, everyone else sat down at an open table in the hotel restaurant, leaving only one seat for Daniel—a seat with a clear view of the big revolving door they’d just come through.
He didn’t thank them; if they were going to the trouble of not calling attention to how badly he was missing Nora, then he wasn’t going to mention it either.
He’d mention it in their evaluations back at the office, under the headings of “team spirit” and “going above and beyond.”
They lingered for nearly two hours—dinner, dessert, coffee and bad jokes. Every time the revolving door turned, he looked up. But Nora never came through it.
Where was she?
Chapter 31
The third day of the conference—Kansas City, MO/North Sioux City, SD
Daniel, July 17, eight o’clock in the morning
When he got back to his room last night, Daniel promised himself he wouldn’t do anything weird or obsessive or stalkerish. He’d wait to hear from Nora. There had to be a good reason she hadn’t called him back.
But when he woke up this morning, there still wasn’t any message on his cell phone. Or his room phone. Or a note under his door. Or anything.
So he paged her again. That was at six-thirty.
At seven, when he should have been heading over to the booth, he called down to the lobby to get the phone number for her room. There was no answer.
He should have gone over to the convention center then, but what if Nora had had some kind of accident in her room last night? She was the only reporter from Livingston Scientific Network here—there wasn’t anyone to check up on her or miss her on the convention floor. Except him.
She didn’t answer when he knocked on her door, either. But if she’d had an accident and she was unconscious, obviously she wouldn’t answer, would she?
So he went down to the lobby—this was definitely bordering on stalkerish, but he didn’t know what else to do—and asked them to send someone up to her room to be sure she wasn’t bleeding to death on the floor of the bathroom or something. “The guest in Room 2020 checked out yesterday morning, sir,” a too-perky woman at the reception desk told him.
There was nothing else to do but go over to the booth, and wonder what the hell was going on with her.
Why would she leave in the middle of the conference? She’d told him how many interviews she had lined up, how many booths she needed to visit and panels and demos she needed to sit in on. She’d been so excited about it; she was going to show what a star reporter she was beyond all doubt.
And then she just … left town.
Had something happened with her family? If there was an emergency with one of her parents, or her Aunt Rachel, she would change her plans and rush home for that, and calling him would be the last thing on her mind. If Mom or Dad or Bianca were in the hospital, he’d probably forget about Nora until he got there and saw them for himself, no matter how wonderful Thursday night had been. He couldn’t blame her for doing the same.
That had to be it. What other explanation could there be—unless it was all his fault. Unless he’d done or said something to scare her off.
No. Not just scare her. Traumatize her—so badly she’d flush a massive career opportunity just to put a thousand miles between them.
When he finally got to the booth, he was completely distracted, replaying every word from Thursday night to try and figure out what he’d said that was so horrible.
“Daniel, is everything okay?”
It was Red.
“Sure,” he lied. “I’m fine. What’s going on?”
“You’ve been emptying and refilling that rack of brochures over and over. Usually you’re a little more with-it than that.” She hesitated; he could see she was debating her next words. “If you need to talk about something, you can carry me over to the lounge and I’ll just sit and listen. It’s the least I can do for you, the way you’ve been helping me the last couple of days.”
He was sorely tempted. Another perspective—a woman’s perspective—might be just the thing he needed. But he couldn’t dump all his feelings and fears on Red. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t really appropriate, either. Besides, there was a lot of work to do today.
“Thanks, Red. But I’m fine—well, I’ll be fine by the time the floor opens, anyway.”
