Gabi shifted as Hunter brought the call to the speaker on his phone. “This is Hunter Blackwell.”
“Mr. Blackwell . . . thank you for taking a minute to talk to me.”
Hunter shrugged and looked at her. “I find when the police call, not talking to them isn’t an option.”
Delgado offered a short laugh. “True. I’m an investigator with LAPD. We had a missing persons report filed this afternoon on an electrician that was at your residence yesterday and wanted to ask you a few questions.”
Gabi sat taller. “Who?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“My wife coordinated the staff at the house yesterday. She’s here in my office with me now and I have you on speaker.”
“OK . . . good. Mrs. Blackwell?”
“This is her . . . who is missing?”
“Name is Mark Collins.”
The name sounded familiar. “There were over thirty people at the house yesterday, officer . . . you’ll have to forgive me.”
“He wired your televisions—”
“Oh, yes! Right. Nice boy . . . he’s missing?”
“He phoned in to his employer that he’d completed your job and was returning the work truck but never showed up.”
“I’m not sure how I can help. He left in the rush with many others. I couldn’t even tell you exactly what time.”
“Anything you can tell us will help. I’d like the names of those at your house yesterday, too.”
Gabi didn’t know where to begin.
Hunter laid a hand on her thigh. “We will come up with a list and get back to you.”
“Time is our enemy, Mr. Blackwell.”
“My decorator will have a list of the kids, and the name of the tree lot . . . the men who set up the lights outside. All those numbers are at home, Officer.”
“As soon as you can get them, Mrs. Blackwell . . . the better.”
“Of course.”
Hunter took Delgado’s number and hung up.
“What do you think that’s all about?” Gabi asked.
“Couldn’t tell you. What do you remember about him?”
“Kid . . . twenty-three, maybe. Some of the college girls were flirting with him. Felicia kept snapping her fingers, telling them to get on with their work and hook up later.” She felt a little smile. “You think that’s what he did? Skipped out on work, hooked up with someone?”
“Possible. What do you want me to do?”
She waved him off, stepped around his desk, and grabbed her purse. “Nothing. I’ll gather the numbers and call Officer Delgado back.”
“I can be home in twenty minutes if you need me.”
She paused at the door with a smile.
Andrew met her at the house, phone numbers in hand. Hunter was, above all things, efficient. Once she contacted Delgado and gave him the numbers he needed, she glanced at the other messages Andrew had taken for her for the day.
Meg called. Call her back.
Meg picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Mama,” Gabi teased.
There was no hello . . . no how do you do . . . just a quick and to-the-point question. “Hunter blackmailed you, didn’t he?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hunter clicked out of the video conference call with a huge sigh of relief. Travis had found the man embezzling his funds and was working with a team of undercover detectives to catch the man in the act. Hunter was about to give in and ask his wife for her savant help on his accounts, see if Gabi could narrow down the location of the missing funds tighter than his team had managed. Looked like now all he had to do was deliver the good news.
He was turning off his computer when Tiffany stacked yet one more unexpected interruption in his day, fifteen minutes before she was due to leave the office. “Sorry for—”
“Save it.”
Tiffany stepped to a paneled wall and opened a hidden door that housed a flat-screen television. “PR called, asked what you wanted to do about this.”
Hunter stood and waited for Tiffany to turn on the set and bring up the recorded feed someone on their team had captured.
The image of Gabi standing beside Sheila in what looked like a sworn enemy stance filled the top right of the screen. The reporter captioned the image with one statement. “The mistress and wife meet.”
The media had been a thorn for years. Now Gabi was feeling their claws.
The reporter went on . . . “Join us at seven for the exclusive interview with the day care worker who claims to be caring for Hunter Blackwell’s illegitimate son. Mr. Blackwell recently and quite unexpectedly married a Florida socialite . . .” The reporter continued to spew his tease for the evening segment.
Tiffany clicked off the set and waited.