The Last Straw (The Jigsaw Files #4) - Sharon Sala Page 0,6

floor until the muscles in her legs were trembling from the strain, and the room was beginning to spin.

Staggering back to the mattress, she sat down, still facing the door, and again, the remnants of the drugs still in her system pulled her under.

* * *

Rachel Dean’s absence had not gone unnoticed at Addison-Tunnell. Her secretary, Lucy Arnold, was in a panic. Their boss, Russ Addison, was in a bigger panic. The clients were in the conference room waiting.

“Call her apartment!” he ordered.

“I already called five times!” Lucy cried. “This isn’t like Rachel. Something is wrong!”

Russ shoved a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Who else is familiar with this project?”

“Uh...maybe Ralph? He did some initial research for her. I can get the file to him.”

“Then do it!” Addison said. “I’ll let him know what’s happening and talk to the clients myself until he gets in there.”

“Yes, sir!” Lucy said.

“And then check on Rachel again,” Addison said.

Lucy pulled up the files on Rachel’s computer, did a quick search for the right one, then sent it to Ralph. She didn’t know what had gone wrong, but she was just sick for Rachel. She’d worked so hard on it.

As soon as it went through, she pulled up Rachel’s personnel file and began looking for contact information, then made a frantic call to Wayne Dyer, the manager of the building where Rachel lived.

Wayne lived in a ground-floor apartment on the premises and was at his desk in the manager’s office, working on accounts, when the phone rang.

“Detter House. This is Wayne.”

“Mr. Dyer, this is Lucy Arnold, from Addison-Tunnell Advertising Agency. I’m Rachel Dean’s secretary. Rachel lives in apartment 210 on the second floor of your residence, and she didn’t come in to work this morning. She didn’t call, and she’s not answering her phone. We’re extremely concerned. She had a very important presentation this morning and would never have missed this. We’re asking if you could do a wellness check?”

Wayne frowned.

“I’m sorry to hear this. Yes, of course, I’ll be happy to check on her.”

“Oh, thank you,” Lucy said. “Please call me back as soon as you do.”

“Yes, I will. I have your number on caller ID. Give me a few minutes to get to that wing of the building.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Lucy said. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

She hung up the phone and then sat, staring off into space, trying not to imagine the worst, while Wayne picked up a passkey and headed for the elevator.

He wasn’t overly concerned with what he’d find. He didn’t know Rachel Dean’s personal habits, but it wouldn’t be the first time a resident had overslept. He was just hoping she hadn’t taken a fall, or was passed out from being drugged up or drunk. That would be completely embarrassing.

He took the elevator up, exited on the second floor and headed down the north hall to apartment 210, then knocked and waited, but no one answered. He knocked again, and then called out her name.

“Rachel! Rachel Dean! It’s Wayne Dyer.”

Still no response.

He unlocked the door, and then the dead bolt before pushing it open. Even then, he still didn’t cross the threshold.

“Rachel! It’s me, Wayne Dyer! Your boss has requested a wellness check. I’m coming in!” he yelled, and then walked into the foyer, leaving the door open behind him as he started his search.

He could hear voices in the back of the apartment and hoped she wasn’t in bed with someone, then recognized the voices of two talk show hosts on the program he’d been watching. The sound he was hearing was the television.

“Rachel! Hello? Hello? Are you there?”

Again, he got no response.

By now his heart was beginning to race. Oh, God, just please don’t let her be dead, he thought as he poked his head into her bedroom.

The television was on. The bathroom door was open, but it was empty. The walk-in closet door was open, but she wasn’t in there. As he left the bedroom and headed toward the kitchen, he was starting to grow concerned. But it wasn’t until he saw a partially filled bowl of congealed soup and the dried cheese on a half-eaten cracker that it began to dawn on him that she was gone.

Her iPad was beside the food, as if she’d just gotten up and walked away from a meal. But that food had been there for hours, and it wasn’t breakfast food. He went back to the living room, taking note of her briefcase on