Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 49393 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49393 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“She’s not in the sauna,” he said.
Drew stood on the deck beside the hot tub, phone to his ear. The bark of his tone told me that he was ripping up someone at local law enforcement for failing to respond adequately to this emergency. All that did was confirm what I already knew.
Jasmine was gone. It would be up to us to find her and bring her back home. Even if we were the kind of men who stood by and let the cops fumble the ball, we would’ve charged in at a time like this. As it stood now, we had to move fast and in a coordinated fashion. It was the most sudden and crucial mission of our lives.
I set to work on Jasmine’s phone, bypassing her security code and checking her messages, voicemails, the metadata on photos and screenshots to see what she’d been thinking or responding to when she disappeared. According to the information on the phone there were no obvious catalysts for her sudden departure. No calls or messages from the estranged mom and little sister, no threats from the ex, nothing to lure her out of the cabin. The last thing in her browser history was ‘Swiss gourmet treats’.
“Her purse,” Ty called to me from the bathroom, “it’s gone. Left the phone took the purse.”
“She has her wallet. And I’m willing to bet her keys are in her purse even though we’re away from home. Did she bring her fob and stuff with her?” I said.
“I wasn’t exactly searching her bags,” Ty said wryly.
“I have an Air Tag on her keyring. I can track her,” I said, pulling up the app. The Air Tag location was back in Virginia. I wanted to slam my phone to the floor, stomp the screen and then ram my hand through some drywall if I couldn’t jam it in her ex’s face instead.
I couldn’t use my tech safety net to find Jasmine. Panic scalded every nerve ending, but I forced it down. I shut my eyes for an instant, then called Eli.
I had to tell him Jas was missing, and I needed his stuck-up wannabe European ass to tell me where to find fancy Swiss shit in this resort. Because that would help us find her if she’d headed out alone.
25
JASMINE
Trying to surprise a team of ex-military security professionals wasn’t easy.
A little fake napping, waiting till Drew went to the bathroom and then I slipped out the French doors and down the path, silent as the grave. I wanted to surprise the Burns boys with some Swiss goodies from the gourmet shop on site. They were impossible to keep a secret from, and Jake probably had a tracking device implanted in our teeth anyway.
A surge of glee hounded me to go faster, almost skipping toward the resort’s main building, excited to give them a fun surprise and proud of myself for sneaking out without being caught. Because there was no alarm system known to mankind that held a candle to even one Burns bro on alert.
In the lobby, the scents and sounds, the beauty of it claimed me for a moment. I stood there and breathed in the tranquility and perfection of the place. Thanks to my bosses slash friends slash lovers, the gorgeous, luxurious resort was part of my story now. The broken road and all that—a country song I loved when I was a kid about how mistakes lead you to where you’re meant to be.
I had been a fatalist since I was about ten, but the Burns boys had taught me to hope for things, to wish for more time, for a future full of adventures and romance with them. I felt a cautious optimism bloom in my chest and couldn’t even blame the expensive aromatherapy for my rush of good feelings. I was in love, and happy, and had something to look forward to for the first time I could remember in all of my life.
I spotted Eli coming out of the restaurant, so I dodged quickly behind a pillar. He went in the gourmet shop, leaving me to wait him out. There was a regular gift shop across the lobby where I hid. By ‘hid’ I mean that I bought a magnetic bottle opener and a box of those amazing local soaps. I sampled the lotion tester and sighed with satisfaction at the light citrus scent. He was still in the damn gourmet shop. I rolled my eyes. No way to surprise them if got caught by a one of them on my silly mission.
I gave up on the gourmet place—I had probably ten more minutes before someone noticed I was missing, and I had to hurry. The plan was to surprise them, not alarm them and make them anxious or furious. I would for sure end up with a tracker in my molar if I didn’t make it back to the cabin before Drew checked in on Ty and me during our supposed nap.