One-Off (14 page)

Eighteen

I stood across from Thomas Circle and surveyed the Early American Classical architecture of the church. Broad steps led up to a portico with large columns and a stately tower at the entrance. As beautiful as it was, I kinda hated it for having a cancellation no matter how important it was to Dallas.

Ainsley appeared on the sidewalk at the corner. Seeing her brought back the memory of last night’s setback. I felt a twinge in my neck and would have preferred to do this alone tonight. It felt like she couldn’t trust me to handle this or maybe she just wanted every opportunity to needle me more.

Still pissed me off that she looked so damn good. She wasn’t turning heads left and right like Dallas could, but she definitely had a presence. Enough people were noticing her. If her hair had been loose instead of folded and held back, even more would take notice on this breezy evening.

I touched the wide scarf tied around my head. I never realized I’d had that many scarves or knit hats until I went searching for something to cover the competing red and brown hair. A few more days and I wouldn’t have to hide it anymore.

She was studying the façade of the church and hadn’t spotted me. Sunglasses hid those extraordinary blue eyes. In a simple blouse and linen trousers, she could have walked out of the classroom or boardroom without looking like she was wearing a suit that would better fit a man. I spent my first few years as associate producer wearing suits that were uncomfortable and didn’t flatter my surfboard frame. When I made it to executive producer, I donated my unbecoming suits and opted for blouses and slacks. Now that I was director of the news division, I often added tailor-made jackets in different styles to look a little dressier. I didn’t know if Ainsley had any suit jackets, but her outfits so far looked exactly like they belonged on a professor.

“Good evening,” I said as she came to a stop nearby.

“Goodness, I didn’t see you.” Her hand came up to pat her chest. “It’s a beautiful building.”

“There are a couple of surprises inside for you.”

“For me?” Her eyebrows edged over the rims of her sunglasses.

“You’ll be able to spot them right away.”

She smiled and looked both ways up the sidewalk. “Are we expecting Morgan soon?”

“She’s probably having dinner with Poppy before she drops her off at her ex-husband’s.”

Her attention returned to the building. She stepped up to touch the limestone. Not one person on the street glanced her way, which was pretty typical for a city sidewalk.

“Sorry I’m late, Skye.” Morgan came up behind us. “Hi, Ainsley. Poppy forgot to pack her favorite stuffed animal. We had to turn around and get it.”

“How old is your daughter?” Ainsley propped her sunglasses on top of her head.

“Four and I swear she’s smarter than me. It’s a little scary.”

“Which is her favorite now?” I asked.

“The dinosaur Aunt Skye gave her, of course.”

“Still?” I faced her. “That’s got to be a record.”

“More than a year.”

“Guess I should have gotten her another for her birthday. Hope you’re washing that thing.”

“Every week. She’s dropped it more times than I want to think about.”

I chuckled and gestured toward the entrance. “Let’s take a look at the layout here. Then we’ll take you to where the reception is being held.”

We climbed the elaborate steps up to the front doors. Dallas attended on a fairly regular basis even though she wasn’t super religious. I was more of a pragmatist, but we had discussions on religion every once in a while. I appreciated that she’d chosen a church that was all-inclusive. So many of them didn’t accept gay members, or did but would preach against them during service. Her church wasn’t like that.

“Stunning,” Ainsley said as we pushed through the door and her eyes spotted the Scottish Cross in the tiled entry. She smiled brightly and searched for more of the other surprises I mentioned. “That’s a Campbell tartan.” She pointed to one of the frames on the wall.

I smiled at Morgan as we stood by and let Ainsley read through the founders’ information, two named Campbell. Ainsley was half Campbell on her dad’s side. I knew she’d be tickled to learn that perhaps distant ancestors of hers had come to America and founded this church.

A man walked up to us and introduced himself. He showed us into the sanctuary where I took notes on Morgan’s comments. She concentrated on the spacing of the aisle and counted the number of pews. “Something on each, don’t you think?”

“I like the sound of that,” Ainsley told her. “Skye?”

I nodded, not having the expertise to disagree. I’d leave it to the florist and the romantic to decide. They went about planning the arrangements and options, getting on as if they’d known each other for years.

When we finished with the church, we had more than an hour before our appointment at the reception place. We chose a pub between venues. I went up to order drinks while they grabbed a table.

Ainsley pushed back in her chair when I set a drink in front of her. “I didn’t tell you what I wanted.”

“Give it a try,” I coaxed of her Mamie Taylor and said to Morgan, “Your martini glass gives yours away.”

“Just what I need. That venue was a lot bigger than I thought it would be.” She reached for the glass and almost drank it down at once.

Ainsley shot a worried look at me. I smiled reassuringly and raised my hand to the bartender for another martini. Morgan’s limit was three before she became goofy, but I’d cut her off at two because we still had the reception venue to visit.

“If you need to hire someone to help with the arrangements, Dallas will cover the cost.”

She shook her head. “Mom’s handling the shop on Friday and Saturday. I’ll spend both days working on the arrangements and ignoring the customers. That should do it.”

“Nice, that.” Ainsley commented.

“I’m lucky. She’s my part-time nanny, part-time temp worker, and full-time good role model for motherhood,” Morgan bragged and I nodded in agreement. Her mom doted on Poppy and seemed to enjoy working in Morgan’s shop as an early retiree.

Ainsley took a tentative sip of her drink. “Ooh, that’s good. I haven’t had one of these since…” Her eyes found mine and crinkled. Since New York when the roommates made time to go out for drinks every other week.

“Since when?” Morgan asked.

“Since the last time I was in New York.”

“Oh? A while ago, huh?”

“Fourteen years.”

“Long time to go without a drink you seem to like. How’d you know?” Morgan looked at me but waved away the question. “Never mind. It’s that special thing again.” Her comment brought a flush to my cheeks.

“What special thing?” Ainsley asked.

“Don’t,” I warned Morgan.

“Skye has this outstanding talent that makes people around her—”

“All right,” I cut in. “That’s enough.”

“Around her, what?” Ainsley ignored me.

Morgan did, too. “Feel special. She’s not even conscious of it, but she remembers things about people and seems to have a sense of when someone needs a little extra boost of confidence or support.”

Ainsley’s eyebrows rose as she looked at me. “Is that right?”

“When my baby girl was born, Skye sent her a birthday card. Not the standard congratulations on your baby card. I got a bunch of those from family and friends with nothing more than their signatures inside. This lady sends a birthday card addressed to my baby with a wonderful note that I’ve read to Poppy many times. She’ll have it in her baby book always.”

I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. I’d written some nice things about Poppy’s mommy and that I couldn’t wait to get to know Poppy and teach her how to run with scissors and other crucial things. I didn’t know it meant that much to Morgan.

Ainsley turned to me with surprise in her eyes. I shrugged. “It was her birth day.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Tell us about your day, Morgan.” I tried to get us off the subject of me.

“I’d rather hear about a typical day in Scotland,” she prompted Ainsley.

“It’s about like here,” Ainsley replied. “Get up, have some breakfast, get on a train, go to work, deal with a boss nobody likes, come home, and do it all over again the next day. Might have a do with some friends at the weekend or maybe off to see the family.”

“It does sound a lot like here. It rains more, right?”

Ainsley laughed. “That it does.”

I’d always liked that about Scotland. And I was beginning to like laidback Ainsley more than I probably should.

Nineteen

The phone slipped from my grasp and clanked to the desk. Van’s voice from the other end was tinny now that I’d dropped the phone, calling out my name over and over. I scrambled to pick it up so he wouldn’t think he’d lost me. The news was bad enough. He didn’t need extra concern.

“What happened?” I asked.

“She was meeting her contact to take her to an interview with the leader of the rebel group. She somehow ended up in the car alone with him. The film crew followed in the van.”

“And her security?”

“In two follow cars.” He sighed. “Her car caught a light and everyone else missed it. By the time the follow cars made it through the intersection, she was gone.”

I wanted to yell at someone, but it wouldn’t help. “And no one knows where she’s meeting?”

“She’s not answering her phone.”

“What does security say?”

“That she’s out of range. There are lots of pockets in the area.”

“What does the K&R team say?”

“That we need to worry.”

I swallowed. K&R knew the region and the practices. If they said we should worry, we needed to worry. “What have you done so far?”

“We’ve got the team out looking.”

“Her teams or both teams?”

“Hers.”

“Put Colin in his goddamn room with one guard, and use the rest of his team to find Dallas.” I barely controlled my temper. It didn’t matter how scared I was, I shouldn’t take it out on Van.

“Good thinking.” Clearly, he was shaken or he would have thought of that already. “We don’t know that anything’s wrong yet.”

“I told her, dammit, I told her to be careful.” I hated being right about something like this.

“This was just one of those things. The guy offers to drive her over. She thinks someone from the crew and her security team is going to ride with her, but he takes off before anyone else can get organized.”

“A setup possibly?” They’d been so careful making a show of covering benign stories to assure the general and the rebels that they were just interested in the political race. No one should have been tipped off.

“When I met the guy, I got the impression he had a thing for her and just wanted some time alone with her.”

“I swear, Van, if anything happens to her I’ll never forgive myself for letting her go down there.”

“Colin’s out of his mind. He wants to start driving the streets to find her.”

“If this was a setup, he needs to stay put. They’ll be coming after him next. If not, and he leaves that room, he’d better have four people with him.”

“I could hire more security.”

“I wouldn’t trust any firm there. If it was a setup, these guys could have bribed all the local security knowing we’d go for more if something like this happened. I’ll get the K&R firm to send more people today. For now if anyone else wants to go, they all go together. No one gets separated ever again. I—I should…” I glanced at my calendar with all those meeting blocks and knew I couldn’t do what I wanted, but she was my best friend. “I should get on a plane.”

“Don’t, Skye. That’ll make everyone worry more. Right now we’re hoping that Dallas is off getting her interview put together and will be back at the determined time.”

“New rules,” I started. “All other meetings happen at the hotel. We’re not risking them again.”

“You know how they are.”

I gave an aggravated sigh. “I’ll scream at them enough until they get it.”

“I’ll call you in an hour with a progress report.”

I placed the receiver back in the cradle and plopped my head in my hands. We’d gone through security procedures before every field assignment in the past. How could Dallas have just abandoned that for the sake of a story? My head pounded and felt heavier than a bowling ball.

“Should I call your friend?” Tori asked from the open doorway. Knowing her, she’d probably listened in on the whole conversation.

“What?” I asked a little dazed before comprehending. “Which friend?” It suddenly occurred to me how few friends I had. The one true friend was now currently missing in another country that specializes in kidnapping tourists. I knew my neighbors, but I wouldn’t consider them friends. Blair from the gym was always good for a night out, but we weren’t sharing deep conversations daily. Morgan, she was most definitely a friend. Would calling her help?

“Colin’s cousin.”

“Ainsley?” It came out as a question because I wasn’t sure how she could think Ainsley and I were friends. We’d never even made it a whole evening without fighting over something or goading each other.

“She seemed nice. Maybe she can offer a little support.”

“No,” I denied the request then thought better of it. She was Colin’s best friend. If it would calm him down to hear from her, maybe it would help keep the focus on finding Dallas. I checked my calendar again for the color coded notes that indicated her speaking schedule while she was here. It was a bit anal, but I didn’t want to schedule an appointment if she was set to be on a campus somewhere. “Yeah, maybe. Don’t tell her why. Just ask her to come in as soon as she can.”

Ruffling through my desk, I found the card of the K&R firm. I picked up the phone and placed a call for backup security to start immediately. They’d already been in contact with their team on the ground and were ready to add more on the next flight out. That brought some reassurance.

I didn’t know how much time passed before Tori knocked on my open door. “Your friend’s here.”

“What’s happened? Did the DJs cancel our appointments?” Ainsley asked as she entered and set her laptop bag and purse on the coffee table in my office.