Page 12 of Dancing With Redemption

6

Lincoln

Lincoln ran a hand through his brown hair while casting his eyes of a deeper brown around the kitchen of his house. Roxie was nowhere, absolutely nowhere to be found. How could she have slipped past his security people, and every other fucker watching her?

Anger flushed his cheeks and clenched the muscles in his jaw, but he wasn’t sure who to direct the anger at. He didn’t know for sure whether Roxie had just got pissed off and run away or if someone had taken her. That left him not knowing what to do and he was not a man who enjoyed feeling helpless in any way.

He paced the floor, decided to have some coffee, then decided he didn’t need any more caffeine. When you were already pacing, adding more anxiety wasn’t a good idea. He stuck his hands in his pockets, glad that Katie was there to get Lily from school. He’d managed to get her off to school without too many fibs about where her mother was.

The truth was, he didn’t know where Roxie was. He didn’t want to explain that to his daughter, not until he knew something was wrong. If she’d just taken off, that was one thing, but what if something had happened to her?

The muscles around his heart knotted up intensely, making him hiss from the discomfort. Is this how she’d felt when he was missing? Like the world was about to collapse on top of him?

“Don’t panic yet, Lincoln. Not yet.” His phone chirped and he moved to the table to check the notification. It was from Kai. There was no sign of her anywhere in South Carolina, it said, but there was someone staying with his siblings at the old house. Was it her? Had she gone to New York?

Lincoln scrolled through his phone then hit the call button under June’s name. He started to pace again as the call went through. June’s voice answered but it was her voicemail.

“Shit!” Lincoln mumbled, flicking the end call button angrily.

June might be doing rounds or performing an operation. She’d call him back when she had time.

Lincoln left the house, sliding the phone into his back pocket as he did so. He walked along the surf, staying far enough out of it to keep his shoes dry. His eyes were on the horizon, off in the distance, tracking the sails of a yacht, but he didn’t really see it. His mind was on Roxie.

If she was the guest at the house then she’d decided to go to New York for some reason. Why, he couldn’t say, but he knew she’d have her reasons. Perhaps it was something to do with Lily, or maybe not. There’d been no closure for her when her parents died. He hadn’t been able to find the answers, though he did have a few leads about those two guys she’d seen. He’d caught brief glimpses of the men that night, but it had been enough to implant their images in his memory.

He had worked with some of the best people in the world to find answers, but there was a piece of the puzzle missing, a very vital piece. Without that piece, he couldn’t move forward.

It hadn’t helped that Roxie’s parents had been intensely private about their families, and had done a lot of work to hide their origins. Lincoln knew people had their reasons for doing things like that, but the things her parents had done to obscure their pasts made it hard for Lincoln to get a grip on what had happened exactly.

She wouldn’t find answers up there, she’d find only danger. Someone had deliberately set that fire, had murdered her parents, he was as convinced of it now as he’d been the night they died. Her father had loved her mother deeply, and he’d loved Roxie just as intensely. He’d decided to move the whole family to Paris to keep them together. A man who went to that much trouble didn’t kill his wife in a fit of rage and leave his child an orphan.

Something had gone terribly wrong in their lives, and that meant Roxie was now in danger if she was in New York.

Swiping at his face with both hands to clear his mind, Lincoln inhaled deeply and then reached for his phone. He sent a text to both of his PAs, not sure which was in the office today, and directed them to get a plane to New York organized for him, and to have a car ready for him there. He then sent a text to Kai to up the security around his house and to let his friend know where he was going, before he called Katie, who was out shopping again.

“Hi Katie, I’ll be gone this evening. No, I don’t know when I’ll be back. Keep Lily safe for me, okay?” Lincoln paused, listening to her question. “Yes, I’m going to look for Chloe. I’ll let you know as soon as I know something, yes.”

Lincoln ended the call as he walked into the house and packed a bag quickly. He had clothes and other things in New York, but he’d need a coat as soon as he landed, and some of his electronics. He was in his car and on the way to the airport when June called him back.

“Hey brother, what’s going on?” June asked nonchalantly. That was a clue that she was hiding something. June always came to the point on the phone with him, especially during office hours.

“She’s there, isn’t she?” Lincoln said, knowing the hands-free mode in the car would pick up his voice.

“Who?” June asked vapidly, and Lincoln’s eyes narrowed on the display in the center of the car.

“Don’t fuck around with me right now, June. Is Roxie up there?” He waited, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel at a stoplight.

“Dammit, Lincoln. Why do I keep ending up in the middle between you two?” June protested, but her sigh of resignation told him she wasn’t going to put up a fight. “She still has her phone off?”

“I guess, it goes straight to voicemail, and she hasn’t even looked at the messages I’ve sent her. So, she’s there?” He already had her confirmation by admitting she knew Roxie’s phone was off, but he wanted it to be clear.

“She is. I left her at the cemetery with my other phone. You have the number for that one, don’t you? Not that she’ll answer it, why would she?” June sighed again, but Lincoln was too busy frowning at the light that was taking too long to turn green to notice.

“What do you mean, you left her at the cemetery? Why would you leave her alone like that?” Lincoln wanted to strangle his sister, who was always too trusting in these situations.

She was a great doctor but in her personal life? Well, she was a bit of a pushover. Normally, her kind and trusting nature would be a good thing, but she’d had a few mishaps over the years because of it. And now she’d left Roxie alone in a cemetery, in New York, the last damn place she should be.

“She was upset, it was the first time she’d been to their grave, you know? I had to get into the office, and she said she’d get a taxi. That’s why she has my other phone, so she could call the taxi to pick her up. I’m sure she’s fine anyway, Lincoln. She knows how to take care of herself. Stop smothering her.” June’s timidity gave way to anger as she went on, but Lincoln ignored it. Now wasn’t the time for his sister to grow a backbone.