Page 12 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
On the screen I can see Gabriel Miller, his stern expression and golden eyes startling.
For a brief moment relief lightens my chest. I can imagine how it played out—a middle-of-the-night text from Gabriel, Avery taking the elevator down to meet him, both of them so giddy to be together they found the first empty room to be alone.
And then in the morning, wondering where her phone went. Gabriel calling it to see if it rings in their temporary room. It makes perfect sense in my head, so sweet it makes me smile.
That’s how I answer the phone—smiling.
“This is Avery’s phone speaking.”
Static bounces back at me. “Hello? Avery?”
I recognize Gabriel Miller’s growl of a voice even with the bad connection. And his concern comes through loud and clear. My skin prickles. Someone walking on your grave. That’s what Mama would say. But I’m more concerned with Avery than me. “Gabriel? This is Penny.”
A crackle, more interference than sound. “Where are you? Is Avery with you?”
There’s a touch of relief in his voice, as if he’s glad to have reached me, as if he’s sure that I’ll answer, yes, she’s right here. As sure as I’d been that everyone was okay when I picked up the phone.
“No,” I say, my voice almost hushed. The situation seems that serious. The luxe penthouse suite suddenly seems that sinister. “I’m in her suite. I spent the night, but when I woke up, she was gone.”
He curses in a long and foul string, punctuated by crackles and snaps of the phone line. “Are there any calls last night on her phone?”
Putting the call on speaker, I flip through her iPhone until I get to the recent calls. “Looks like something came in at 1:35 a.m. last night. Or this morning, I guess. A missed call.”
“That was me at the airport.” Gabriel mutters. “What’s after that?”
“There’s nothing else.”
So where did she go? And why didn’t I wake up when she did? I was only a foot away from her in bed, but probably too exhausted from a full course load and working in the kitchen to hear her leave. Guilt eats at my throat like acid.
He swears again. “I’ll call Professor Wilson. Can you look around the Emerald?”
Professor Anna Wilson is her graduate advisor and close friend, after they went to a Greek excavation together this past summer. I can’t imagine why Avery would have gone to campus on a random Saturday morning, without her phone, leaving me sleeping in her room. There aren’t really mythology research emergencies. But if she went anywhere near Smith College, Professor Wilson would know about it.
“I’ll ask my manager,” I promise. “We’ll find her.”
My mind is still a little sluggish from sleep. I might have thought I drank too much alcohol if we’d had any at all. Waking up in a new place, finding my friend mysteriously gone—it’s all leaving me disoriented. I struggle for good reasons she might have left and come up empty.
“Gabriel,” I say slowly. “Why did you know to call this morning?”
It filters in, the flick of a lightbulb, that he had been worried when he first called. That he has a terrible connection, but he still knew to find her. He knew she might be missing.
He’s silent for one beat, two.
Long enough for horrible possibilities to fill the empty space in my mind.
“We talked yesterday,” he says, which doesn’t answer the question. “She told me about your father.”
It’s that feeling I have when I’m on the right track with a proof, more instinct than logic. I know there are intellectual cogs working in the background, connecting clues before I can formulate the numbers on paper. Or say the words out loud. But right in this moment it feels more like intuition.
Two people missing. “Do you think they’re connected?”
“No,” he says, but I’m not sure I believe him.
The slap of muscle against bone, my heart pumping in wild expansion. “I don’t understand how they could be connected. I talked to her last night before we went to sleep. She even told me I should stay here and wait it out. That I shouldn’t leave.”
“She’s right,” he says. “You should stay there.”
But it doesn’t sound like agreement. It’s more like a warning.
I press my palm to my forehead, feeling like the penthouse is spinning. Or maybe it’s just me. “Tell me what happened. You must have found something. Something to make you worry about her. What was it?”
“Ask everyone at the hotel if they’ve seen her. Pull them out of bed if you have to. And call me the second you hear anything, understand? I’ll be on the first flight there, but still call me. I’ll make it work.”
“Gabriel.”
He makes a hoarse sound. “I always worry. Ever since…”
Ever since we found out that her biological father had stalked her and hurt her. The same man who assaulted me. Except Jonathan Scott is dead, isn’t he? He’s not a threat anymore. So why do I still feel afraid?
