Page 101 of Slow Burn (The Boston Beauties)

He ended the call, and I called 911. ‘911, what is your emergency.’

‘Hi, my name is Drew Cameron, my girl...wife is Jessa Cahill...Cameron. She’s on house confinement at the moment, but she’s not home and my staff found the monitor cut off. It should be emitting a signal. Can you please inform Detective Landry of the Barnstable Police Department, I'm driving back to the house, so I can’t call her.’

‘Sir, this is for emergencies…’

‘This is a fucking emergency, something has happened to her.’

‘Sir…’

‘Will you relay this message to the detective and the police right now, or do I need to involve higher authorities? Because I assure you her father is extremely well-connected…’

‘I will pass on your message to her now…’

I took my exit off the highway and sped through the roads that led to our house, knowing that I could get pulled over at any time, but at least I'd have the attention of the police.

My phone rang as I was pulling on the long stretch of road that would lead to our house; the truck’s screen displayed that it was Steve calling.

‘Drew, what's going on?’ he asked sounding out of breath.

‘I have no idea, I'm just about to pull into the driveway, and I see a police car already there,’ I informed him, pulling into my driveway to find a police officer stopping me.

‘Excuse me, sir, you cannot be here,’ he told me as I rolled down my window.

‘This is my house, and my wife is missing,’ I stated matter-of-factly. I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from getting to the bottom of this.

The officer looked at me, clearly not sure what to do. ‘Move out of my way so I can go in to talk to detective Landry.’ I stared at him having already seen her car up by my house.

Inside, Jose was seated at the island with one officer, and I saw detective Landry enter from the back door. ‘What’s going on?’ I walked right up to her.

This woman had been a bit of a pain in our ass over the past week that Jessa was confined to the house or otherwise needing to attend appointments. She decided to check in on us at the most inopportune times, and when Jessa needed to attend meetings with lawyers, she made it seem like such a colossal inconvenience to her and the officers.

I laid into her a few days ago when she did a check at two in the morning, and then again five hours later at seven. It was completely unacceptable; Jessa and her family had been more than cooperative, and Abby said that any potential charges were likely to be dropped by the end of the week—however, this was unofficial, and we couldn’t say anything.

Jessa and I both thought it was to get airtime from the news crews and paparazzi that had been camped out until a few days ago, the last finally leaving yesterday.

‘You tell me, Mr. Cameron,’ she looked at me. ‘Where did she go this time?’

I shook my head and looked over at Jose. ‘Are you alright, kid?’

He glared at the officer. ‘They tried to put me in cuffs…’

‘He’s sixteen fucking years old, you can’t talk to him without a parent or legal representation,’ I spit out, only knowing this because he had actually gotten into a bit of trouble lately, and his father Carlos had a field day with the police department with how they handled him.

‘That is why he is sitting here, waiting for one of his parents to answer their phones.’

I walked over to him. ‘Can you talk to me?’ I asked in a low voice.

He looked up to me and nodded, ‘I have nothing to hide. I've told you everything, the food is there.’ He looked across the counter, and I saw Jessa’s phone on the counter within arm’s reach of the knife and container of hummus, a bag of carrots off to the side. ‘And the monitor is there, by the door.’

I followed his line of sight to see the small black monitor in two pieces on the floor by the backdoor, lying next to a pair of industrial bolt cutters.

All the hairs on my body stood on the edge, and I went rigid in the chair I was in before springing to my feet. I looked up to the detective. ‘Those c...cutters…’ I stuttered. ‘I think…no, Iknowshe’s been taken.’

The detective looked over to me and then back to the cutters. ‘Are they yours?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, but I lent them to Lisa Rutter last week.’

She took out her notepad and pen. ‘Lisa Rutter,’ she repeated, and I assumed she was writing the name down. ‘And you know her how?’

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