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  He frowned. “You still haven’t heard anything from your aunt?”

  “Not a word, and I don’t care that it hasn’t been twenty-four hours. She’s in trouble, and you need to put out an Amber Alert.”

  “That’s for kids. A Silver Alert is for adults and is usually put into effect when an elderly or disoriented person goes missing.”

  “She’s disoriented,” Roxy exclaimed. “She has a touch of early onset dementia.” Sheri gasped at the blatant lie, while Marlene merely released a small groan.

  Roxy would do whatever it took to get somebody to look for her aunt, even if it meant telling a little white lie, even if it meant Aunt Liz would kill her if she ever heard what Roxy had said about her.

  Roxy raised her chin as Steve’s eyes narrowed in obvious disbelief. “Early onset dementia. Well then, if that’s the case I guess we’d better file a report,” he finally said. He pulled up two more chairs to join the one that sat before his desk and gestured for the three to have a seat.

  “I don’t just want to file a report,” Roxy said as she sat down in the chair directly opposite him. She leaned toward him. “I want a search party started. I want a full investigation going. I want...I need...” To her horror, tears burned at her eyes.

  “How about we start with some paperwork,” Steve replied with a hint of kindness in his voice.

  “Fine, and then we’ll start a search party,” Roxy exclaimed as she quickly reined in her emotions. The last thing she wanted to do was show weakness in front of her sisters. Still, Sheri placed a gentling hand on Roxy’s arm, and Roxy drew a deep breath and leaned back in the chair.

  For the next hour and a half Roxy held on to her patience as Steve asked question after question about the missing woman. Even though she was screaming inside for some kind of action to be taken, she knew that each and every question he asked and the answers they could all provide might hold a clue as to where Aunt Liz might be.

  Twilight had fallen when Steve finally asked for a picture. As Roxy pulled a photo of her aunt out of her wallet, the encroaching darkness of night crept deep into her soul.

  “So what happens now?” Marlene asked.

  “You all go home,” he said.

  Roxy stared at him in stunned surprise. “Go home? How can we just go home? We haven’t found her yet.”

  “I suggest you go home and continue to contact friends and acquaintances, and let me know if you hear any information that might help me in the investigation.” He stood, and it was obviously a dismissal.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be able to fit an investigation into your busy social life?” Roxy asked as she noticed the blonde pointedly looking at her watch and then at him from across the room.

  Marlene shot her an elbow in the side. Roxy’s cheeks warmed as she realized she was insulting the very man she needed to help her, to help them.

  * * *

  It had been the most frustrating hour and a half Steve had spent in recent years. While he’d found Marlene and Sheri to be simmering with anxiety, yet calm and cooperative, Roxy had been like a bomb on the verge of explosion.

  She’d bitten her nails, snarled out answers and insulted his work ethic, but looking into the depths of her beautiful dark eyes, with lashes that were sinfully long, he could tell a panic screamed inside her and he knew that feeling intimately.

  When the three of them left, it was as if Roxy sucked all the energy out of the room with her. He leaned back in his chair and only looked up from the notes he’d taken when Officer Chelsea Loren sidled up to the side of his desk once again.

  “I thought maybe you’d like to head out of here and get a drink with me,” she said, her sexy smile attempting to lure him in. She’d been trying to entice him into a relationship for months without success.

  He grinned at her. “Ah, Chelsea, how many times do we have to go through this? You know you’re utterly irresistible, but I don’t do workplace romances.”

  Her enhanced lips puffed into a pout. “Obviously I’m not that utterly irresistible if you always turn me down.”

  “Go find somebody else to play with, Chelsea. I’ve got work to do,” he said, his mind instantly filling with a vision of dark eyes and that barely suppressed panic that had lit them from within.

  Chelsea flounced back across the room, and within minutes she had left with a couple of other uniforms getting off duty. Steve looked toward the window, where darkness had completely fallen.

  The first night of dealing with a missing loved one was the absolute worst. There would be little or no sleep for the Marcoli sisters tonight. It would be the most agonizing night they’d probably ever suffer.

  They would jump at every phone call and hear every creak and groan of their homes, anticipating some answer, a sudden appearance of their aunt Liz. By morning they’d all be exhausted, and still the fear would be like a living, breathing entity eating at their insides.

  He shoved aside those thoughts and got up from his desk. There wasn’t much he could do this late at night as far as a real investigation, and he still wasn’t sure that any foul play was involved or that Chief of Police Brad Krause would even issue orders for an investigation.

  But it was time for Steve to get out of there, and it wouldn’t hurt him to take a drive for the next hour or two and look for a woman who had somehow gotten lost from her home. Most nights he either met with his work buddies for a few beers or drove around, putting off returning to his own house until the very last minute.

  He left the building and got into his car, and he thought of Roxy telling him that Liz Marcoli had early onset dementia. It had obviously been a lie, but he’d forgive her, as he knew the forces that were driving her at the moment.

  The woman who for the past three and a half years had been responsible for the luscious cakes, pies, pastries and muffins at the Dollhouse didn’t suffer early onset dementia or anything else, except maybe a touch of arthritis. The sisters had mentioned no other health issues, but rather had insisted that Liz was in perfect health.

  He was just about to start his car engine when Officer Joe Jamison pulled his patrol car in next to Steve’s car. As Joe got out, Steve rolled down his window and grinned at the bear of a man.

  “What’s up, big man?”

  Joe shrugged broad shoulders. “The usual, writing warnings and tickets for folks who can’t read speed limit signs. Later I’ll be looking out for the usual Friday night drunks. What about you? Who’s the lucky lady tonight?”

  Steve laughed. “You know my reputation is mostly based on rumor and fiction, but actually there is a lady on my mind this evening, and I’m going to do a little hunting for her.”

  Joe raised a dark eyebrow. “Hunting? Since when did you ever have to hunt for a woman? It seems to me that every time we’re out together, there are a couple of hot women throwing themselves at you.”

  “You don’t do so bad yourself,” Steve replied with a grin. Joe often joined Steve, Frank and Jimmy for Saturday night drinks at the Wolf’s Head, a popular local tavern.

  “For me it’s got to be the uniform. We all know women like guys in uniforms, even if they do look like grizzly bears.”

  Steve laughed. “You don’t look like a grizzly bear. You look like a big guy who can take care of any trouble a damsel in distress might have. And speaking of damsels in distress...”

  Steve quickly explained about Liz Marcoli. “I’m planning on driving around a bit now before heading home to see if she’s anywhere on the streets. I’d appreciate you and anyone else who’s working the night shift doing the same on the nightly patrols. There’s a photo of her on my desk.”

  “Will do,” Joe agreed. He backed away from Steve’s car. With a wave Steve pulled out of the parking lot and headed slowly down Main Street.

  He’d learned from the sisters that Liz Marcoli had bee
n a young widow; she’d lost the love of her life in a car accident when she’d been only thirty. According to the sisters, Liz had never dated again, had never expressed any interest in marrying or having any kind of a romantic relationship.

  But would Liz share the details of a man in her life with her nieces? Wasn’t it possible that Liz might have a secret lover? That she’d been whisked away for a spontaneous romantic couple of days and hadn’t told her nieces anything about it?

  Still, that didn’t explain the baked items neatly packed for delivery and her purse on the kitchen counter. Although walking away from responsibilities was not a crime, it was also not normal, and anything abnormal like this had the potential to be a crime.

  However, a friend the women didn’t know about might have needed emergency help, and the possibility of a spontaneous absence because of a man in her life was equally plausible.

  He knew how busy Roxy stayed at her restaurant, and from what he’d learned talking with Marlene and Sheri, they were business owners, as well. Running the roadside building near town would require a lot of time and energy on their part.

  So how well did they really know their aunt? What he needed to do tomorrow was talk to the friends and neighbors the ladies had provided him with in a list and see what Liz Marcoli did when she wasn’t with her nieces.

  Steve knew better than most that you could think you knew somebody, that you could love and trust somebody, and in the end realize that person had secrets and that you really didn’t know them at all.

  A thick band of pain inched around his chest, and for a moment it felt like an old familiar friend. There were now days at a time when he stayed so busy that he didn’t feel the ever-present heartache—minutes in time when he almost forgot, but not quite.

  He shoved away thoughts of his own issues and instead focused on the street he slowly cruised, looking for a sixty-five-year-old woman who might be walking in the dark after suffering a head injury or some other medical issue that might have her disoriented.

  The streets were nearly deserted. The small town of Wolf Creek closed up early, with most stores shutting down by eight in the evenings. Although many of the businesses were geared toward the tourism the town enjoyed, there were also the normal stores found anywhere.

  He drove slowly, occasionally using his high beams to peer into an alley or a recessed storefront.

  At this point he didn’t feel the frantic panic over the missing woman that he’d seen in Roxy’s eyes. It was too early to panic.

  As he passed the Dollhouse, his gaze went up to the third floor, where lights appeared to glow from every window, like beacons calling out in the night to the missing woman.

  He couldn’t help but think of the woman who lived on that third floor. Roxy was a wildcat, driven by her emotions, and while he found himself impossibly attracted to her, at the same time she scared the hell out of him.

  Right now what he felt toward her was an empathy born in a common trauma. Hopefully Liz Marcoli would be found soon, alive and well, and this vanishing would have simply been some sort of miscommunication.

  His own missing-persons case was an ongoing heartache that he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. The pain of the absence of a loved one had built a shell around his heart, forcing him to pull on the facade of a carefree, flirtatious, shallow man in order to survive his emotional pain.

  He hoped Roxy and her sisters never had to deal with days, weeks, months of such ongoing agony. He knew better than anyone that the lack of closure in such an event transformed a person—and, in his case, had the power to completely break a man emotionally.

  Chapter 3

  Roxy jerked awake just after five in the morning. She was on the sofa, still dressed in her clothes from the day before and appalled that she’d fallen asleep at all.

  She’d spent most of the night before on the phone with her sisters and then checking and rechecking with Liz’s friends until it had gotten too late to make any more calls. Then she’d paced the floor, waiting to hear something, anything, about Liz’s whereabouts.

  Her body’s need to rest had apparently finally overwhelmed her panicked fear, and even though she’d only been asleep a couple of hours, she felt guilty for sleeping any length of time while her aunt was still missing.

  As she roused herself from her awkward position on the sofa, muscles ached and protested the time spent on the sofa and not in her comfortable bed.

  Coffee, her brain screamed. Coffee and then a long, hot shower. Although she’d like to call Detective Steve Kincaid and see what he’d done the night before to find her aunt, she knew it was an unreasonable thought at an unreasonable hour of the morning. She doubted that much work had been done overnight, and, in any case, if he’d found out something pertinent, surely he would have called her.

  She turned on the kitchen light and stumbled across the room to the coffeemaker. This was her usual time to get up in the mornings, and she normally enjoyed the half hour or forty-five minutes she gave herself before heading downstairs to start the prep work for the day.

  Even though it was Saturday, the busiest day in the Dollhouse, Roxy had told Josie to make arrangements for extra help, as Roxy wouldn’t be working. She couldn’t work with her head in utter turmoil, with the fear that had already begun to possess her entire body as she thought of the one woman in the world who had always managed to center her.

  It was too early to call her sisters, too early to do anything but sit at her table and sip her coffee and think, but she quickly realized she had no viable ideas about where Aunt Liz might be or what might have happened to her. She’d already considered most of the possibilities, and they’d proved fruitless.

  She leaned back in the black-cushioned chrome chair and gazed around the kitchen. It was funny, really, that she’d decorated her restaurant with antiques and kitschy items, but her personal domain was sleek and modern, from the stainless steel kitchen appliances to the glass-topped tables and black-and-white decor of her living room.

  Even her bedroom was simple, a king-size bed covered in a black-and-white patterned spread, a dresser holding a couple of bottles of perfume, a jewelry holder and two nightstands with small black-and-silver lamps.

  She’d always found the rather austere, impersonal aura of her private quarters comforting and peaceful, but this morning was definitely an exception.

  She rarely cooked up here, given the industrial kitchen in the restaurant, where she usually nibbled and picked her way through the day from whatever was on the menu.

  The last thing on her mind was food, either for herself or her customers. What she really wanted to know was what time Detective Kincaid began his day at work, or if he was off on Saturdays.

  Since the three detectives usually had their first meal at the restaurant around seven and were always on their way out the door within forty-five minutes, she assumed their daily schedule began at eight.

  Steve Kincaid didn’t strike her as a man who would be on time. He probably lollygagged to his desk sometime between eight-fifteen and eight-thirty. Roxy had never been late for anything in her life, and she wouldn’t have a hard time believing that Steve Kincaid had never been on time for anything in his life. His laid-back aura was in direct opposition to her driving energy.

  She frowned and got up to pour herself a second cup of coffee, her mind still filled with the shaggy-haired, blue-eyed detective, who for some reason irritated her by his mere existence whenever she saw him.

  It was, for the most part, an irrational reaction, and that’s what made it all the more irritating. Despite his outrageous flirting with her, he would never mean anything to her in life. No man ever would. Besides, she knew his stupid flirting was just for show.

  But she was aware of the fact that she needed him right now, that she was depending on him to fix her world and make it right. She just wasn’t used t
o needing anyone.

  She also realized that in all their talk about Aunt Liz and her friends and acquaintances the day before, they hadn’t mentioned Ramona and the potential that Liz might have run off to meet her young sister somewhere. In fact, Roxy thought perhaps they’d given Steve the impression that their mother was dead, and as much as she hated it, she needed to be clear about the woman who was their mother.

  After finishing her second cup of coffee, she left the kitchen and headed for the bathroom, where she took a long, hot shower and then dressed in a pair of jeans and a navy T-shirt that advertised the Dollhouse in bold pink letters.

  By that time she knew Josie had arrived in the kitchen downstairs, for the scent of boiling chicken and simmering roast drifted up the stairway as Roxy headed downstairs.

  When she entered the kitchen, Josie stood in front of the stove, her feet moving and arms flailing to the music coming in from her earbuds.

  She nearly jumped out of her shoes when Roxy tapped her on the shoulder. Roxy might have laughed on any other day, but today there was no laughter to be found anyplace inside her.

  Josie yanked out her earbuds, her cute features instantly transforming into concern. “Roxy, how are you doing?”

  It took a moment for Roxy to reply. How was she doing? “I think I’m kind of numb right now,” she finally said.

  “So there wasn’t any word overnight?”

  Roxy shook her head. “No, nothing. Are you going to be okay here without me today?”

  “I’ve got it covered.” Josie stepped back to the stove and turned down the flames beneath the boiling chicken that would later be deboned and prepared as chicken salad for the lunch fare. “I’ve called in Allie and Nancy to waitress. Greg will help me out here in the kitchen, and Gus said he’d try to show up a little early this afternoon to help with anything we need and with closing up.”

  She moved closer to Roxy, her brown eyes soft with sympathy. “We have this, Roxy. For as long as you need us, we’ll all pull together and keep this place running just as if you were here snapping the whip.”