SEALed With A Kiss(15)
“I’d better call her,” she said to Robert, whose grimace told of his disappointment that their time together was dwindling to a close. Dialing Lia’s number, Bella frowned when Lia’s voice mail answered in lieu of a ring. A frisson of concern had her finishing her second cup of coffee in one big gulp. “Something’s wrong. Her phone’s not even turned on.”
Robert gave a negligent shrug. “She’s probably listening to the organ recital. Maybe they ask people to turn their phones off.”
“Doubtful.” Macy’s giant organ, the largest functioning pipe organ in the world, gave a thunderous Christmas recital every two hours during the holiday season. A ringing cell phone wouldn’t begin to disturb the sonorous performance. Bella’s phone buzzed and she immediately snatched it up, only to cringe as she recognized Vinny’s number. “Hello?”
“Yo, where are you girls? You said you’d be home by noon. Mama’s got lunch ready.”
“Uh…” Dread put a cold spot on the top of Bella’s head. “I’m not actually with Lia right now,” she carefully admitted.
“What?” His confusion elicited a pinch of guilt.
“She…she said I could go to Starbucks while she finished her shopping, and I haven’t heard from her since.” The silence on Vinny’s end had her holding her breath.
“When’s the last time you actually saw her?” he demanded, apparently seeing straight through her prevarications.
“When she turned into the parking lot next to Starbucks,” Bella confessed, tucking her chin in shame.
“Then you never actually saw her get out of her car?”
“No.”
“Have you tried calling her at all? Has she answered her phone for you?”
“All I get is her voice mail. Maybe her battery died.”
“She charged it all night. You were supposed to stay together,” he added on a scolding note.
“Well, she’s got Friend Finder on her phone. Can’t we find her that way?”
“The app doesn’t work when her phone’s turned off. It put her last location at the Wannamaker parking lot.”
At least that made sense. “She’s bound to be here somewhere.”
“Tell me you left your keys for the Escort here at the house,” Vinny demanded.
“They’re on my dresser,” she told him.
“Good. I’m coming to pick you up. Wait right inside the door at Starbucks and keep trying Lia’s number. Let me know if you get through to her.”
“Okay.” She ended the call and met Robert’s worried blue stare. “You’d better disappear,” she warned. “My brother’s on his way and you don’t want to meet him right now.”
Robert looked puzzled. “Does his wife do this often?”
“Um, no, I don’t think so. But I have a bad feeling about this.” For some reason, her thoughts kept circling back to Lia’s interview with Rawlings yesterday. If that man harbored a secret he thought Lia might reveal—a secret that could cost him the vice presidency—wouldn’t he take measures to try and stop her? “You’d better go, Robert.” She slipped off her stool, pecked his cheek, and went to wait by the door.
Out the corner of her eye, she could see Robert studying her in the same protective way that Vinny watched her. She dialed Lia’s number again, to the same result. When her Escort drew alongside the building minutes later, she sent Robert an apologetic wave, dashed outside and slipped into the passenger seat.
The set of Vinny’s jaw warned her not to speak unless spoken to. He wordlessly peeled out, turned left at the next intersection and headed for the Wannamaker parking lot. They circled it twice, keeping a sharp eye out for Lia’s Kia Soul. It wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Vinny braked next to the parking attendant’s little hut. “Excuse me,” he called through his lowered window. “Do you remember an orange Kia Soul entering or leaving this lot in the last couple of hours?”
“Uh, yeah actually.” A young man with a bad case of acne leaned out of his window. “Some guy followed her in here. I figured it had to be her husband cause he drove off with her car and left his here.”
“I’m her husband,” Vinny snarled at the young man. “Show me where this guy’s car is. What did he look like?”
A minute later, Vinny was walking around an ugly, beat up Volvo, memorizing every detail about it, and bending to inspect the plates. Bella hugged herself in her seat trying to quell the tremors that had started radiating from her belly. Vinny was calmer than she thought he would be. Being a SEAL must have taught him to control his Italian temper, but she would almost prefer to see him yelling and pitching a fit than looking gray around the gills, his eyes dark with confusion. What, did he think, even for one moment, that Ophelia had run off with another man?