Amber answered right away.
“Hi, Haley, I’m really glad to hear from you,” she said. “How are you?”
She sounded as if she was genuinely glad to hear from me. We’d always gotten along, and I didn’t want that to change by putting her in a difficult position with Ty by asking a lot of personal questions about him.
“Is Ty engaged?” I asked.
Damn. I hadn’t meant to say that—not so soon in the conversation, anyway.
“Engaged? Are you kidding? Mr. Gloom and Doom?” Amber asked. “No way.”
I almost ran my car off the highway.
“Oh my God, he’s not engaged?” I am pretty sure I yelled that.
“Why would you think that?” Amber asked.
“Sarah Covington is engaged. Since she’d been all over Ty all the time, I figured they were a couple,” I said.
“I haven’t heard anything about Sarah getting engaged,” Amber said.
“A friend of mine got a visual on her wearing a diamond ring,” I told her.
“Ty hasn’t been acting like he’s engaged,” she said. “But he has been really weird lately.”
Ty was stable, sensible, cautious, predictable. Weird for him could mean he’d taken an alternate route home from the office.
“Weird how?” I asked.
“Secretive. He used to tell me everything, now not so much,” Amber said.
“What’s he keeping secret?” I asked. “Any idea?”
“It started back when he was in the car accident, remember?” Amber said.
I remembered how the hospital had called because Ty wanted me to pick him up from the emergency room. I remembered how scared I was thinking he’d been hurt, how relieved I’d felt when I saw him and knew he was okay.
“And a couple of days ago,” Amber said, “he had me hire actresses. Twenty of them.”
Okay, that was definitely weird.
“Maybe he wanted them for show. Maybe he was having a party or something?” I didn’t like the idea, but it was all I could think of.
“A party with hot chicks? Ty?” Amber asked.
True, Ty wasn’t the party animal that some people—okay, me—were, but I’d seen flashes of a wild guy lurking inside him. He’d had to take over the helm of the family business when his dad had a heart attack, even though I don’t think he really wanted to. Five generations of the Holt’s chain were riding on his shoulders. He wouldn’t let the family down.
“Besides, if he was throwing a party—or any sort of social event—he would have asked me to plan it for him,” Amber said. “I can tell you for a fact that he’s not having fun at anything. He’s working twelve to fifteen hours a day, nearly every day.”
“That’s not good,” I said.
“I’m worried about him,” Amber said. “I wish you two would get back together.”
I really didn’t know how to respond, so I just said, “Thanks for letting me know what’s going on.”
“I’ll ask around about Sarah and see what’s up with her engagement,” Amber promised, and we hung up.
I’d decided to drive out to PCH to clear my thoughts, but now all I could think about was Ty and the things I liked about him.
He always did the right thing. He was very thoughtful, extremely generous, and sensitive without being a ticket-stub-saver kind of guy. He was aggressive in business, but not ruthless, more like a chess master plotting, strategizing, looking ahead a half-dozen moves, maneuvering to get what he wanted.
Memories bounced around in my head. The image of his crooked grin I saw during our special moments, the feel of his arms around me, the way he smelled after a shower. They all settled around my heart.
I missed him.
Why hadn’t I fought for us?
CHAPTER 21
I called Holt’s with my touch-of-the-stomach-flu excuse, a personal favorite of mine, and said I wouldn’t be in for my shift tonight. I didn’t get any push-back, but I didn’t expect to. I mean, really, what were they going to do? Working there was already the ultimate punishment.
I wasn’t concerned that the outfits for the fashion show still had to be put together. Everything was so hideous I could just pick things at random the day of the show and send them down the runway, and nobody in the we-love-a-flashing-blue-light-special audience would know the difference.
My real concern was being available to make the ransom drop tonight and retrieving the Beatles bobbleheads when Muriel called with the kidnapper’s instructions.
I glanced at my watch as I sat in my office. Nearly five. Why hadn’t I heard from Muriel yet?
And why hadn’t Jack called me back? Yeah, okay, he worked for the Pike Warner law firm, plus handled cases on the side, but I am, after all, me.