Read Online Dark Sky by Carla Neggers - Free Book Online Page B

was almost three hours ago!”
    â€œI didn’t find out she was gone until now. I stopped by the house—she left a note on the kitchen table. Sam’s been in and out all day, but he thought she was here. I called her cell phone and left a message. I tried your apartment—” He paused, his emotions surfacing again. “I was hoping you two were off shopping.”
    â€œWhen I was home a few weeks ago, Wendy said she wanted to come visit me, but we didn’t set a date. I was open to the idea, but, Joshua, I’d have cleared it with you first.”
    â€œI know. We argued about this vegan thing last night. I told her to eat a damn steak and put some color back in her cheeks. She looks so stressed out and unhappy all the time—I don’t know what’s going on. It wouldn’t have mattered what I said. She was in a mood. She’s been working on college applications—I offered to help, and she bit my head off.”
    Juliet could envision the exchange between father and daughter. “Maybe the pressure’s getting to her—all these strangers looking at her grades, judging her. I remember hating it. Plus, her mother’s not here to give her moral support. She’s used to that, even more so since she was homeschooled.” Juliet stopped herself. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
    â€œFind her, will you?”
    â€œI’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
    Juliet hung up and grabbed her jacket, quickly telling Tony Cipriani what was going on. He immediately offered to go with her, but she shook her head. They both were tackling paperwork of the dullest kind. She didn’t blame him for looking for an excuse to get out of there, but her partner didn’t need to be tracking down her errant niece with her.
    She took the elevator down to the lobby of the nondescript federal building hoping she wouldn’t have to fight traffic to get uptown. Out on the street, Ethan Brooker was just getting out of a cab.
    Juliet thought she must have conjured him up and was losing her damn mind. She charged out to the street.
    He was real. She hadn’t made him up or mistaken someone else for him.
    â€œGood,” he said. “You’re here. Saves me from having to lure you out here.”
    He had on a battered brown leather jacket, a denim shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, and he hadn’t shaved in several days. His eyes were harder, blacker, more piercing even than Juliet remembered. They looked as if they could set fire to the building.
    â€œMan, Brooker,” Juliet said. “Wherever they sent you, it wasn’t a Club Med.”
    â€œWhere are you going in such a hurry?”
    She gave him the basics, and his reaction—as if he, too, was worried that someone had harmed Wendy, or, God forbid, thought she was Juliet—scared the hell out of her. “You’ve seen her? My niece?”
    â€œI saw a teenage girl get out of a cab and drag a backpack and tote bag up the steps to your building. Small, long dark hair?”
    â€œThat’s her. When—”
    â€œOver an hour ago. I’ve been sitting in traffic.”
    Juliet frowned, trying to think. “We have a new doorman.” She didn’t tell Ethan that letting him sneak up to her apartment in late August was the reason the old doorman was gone. “He should have called me—”
    â€œWater over the dam. Let’s go.”
    She didn’t budge. “Wait a minute. You were at my building—and now you’re here?”
    â€œWe need to talk.” His tone held no hint that he was thinking about roses and sun-kissed cafés. “I didn’t get your guy.”
    Bobby Tatro. Juliet didn’t want him in her thoughts at the same time as her niece. “I supposed I’d have heard if you had. All right. Come with me. We’ll take my truck. We can talk on the way.”
    Â 
    Joshua Longstreet headed outside,