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

his boots were shining. She refused to watch when he settled that black Stetson on his head, and left the house ahead of him, knowing he would follow.

“I’m stopping to get bear claws on the way. Don’t forget. Stay off the beltway,” she said.

“I’m not likely to forget that, and I have to get gas. See you at the office,” Charlie said.

They both got in their cars. Wyrick used her remote to open the iron gates at the front of the estate, and Charlie used his to close them as they drove through. As always, Wyrick kept an eye out for people who didn’t belong, and Charlie kept an eye out for her, by following the tracker she’d put on her phone so he’d always know where she was.

They took backstreets toward Charlie’s office building, and parted ways when Wyrick pulled in to a strip mall and parked in front of a little bakery.

Even though Charlie had eaten waffles for breakfast, he was already thinking about coffee and crunching on sugar-glazed bear claws at the office. By the time he got to the station to refuel, Wyrick was back in her car and on her way to the office.

She beat him there because she needed to be first. She liked going into the quiet rooms, turning on lights and booting up computers. She liked making coffee and putting the pastries under the glass dome on the coffee bar. And she liked, most of all, sitting at her desk and hearing the stride of Charlie’s footsteps as he came up the hall toward the office, then waiting for his key in the door.

Before, he used to come striding in, bringing life and energy into the space. But that was before people started trying to kill her. Now they had bulletproof frosted glass in the door, a security camera in the hall outside and people had to wait to be buzzed in. Wyrick resented the loss of her freedom, but she’d done what it took to feel safe, so there was that.

By the time Charlie finally arrived, Wyrick had gone through the messages, had notes on his desk and was entering direct deposit payments into their office accounts.

“Morning,” he said as he passed her desk.

“Bear claws at the coffee bar. Messages on your desk,” she said without looking up.

Charlie nodded. Here, their relationship was back on a boss-to-employee basis. At home, they stood on equal ground, free to argue. Free to admit shit to each other that they never spoke aloud outside those walls.

He stopped at the coffee bar and poured himself a cup of coffee, snagged a bear claw on a napkin and went into his office. He left his hat on the rack, and the jacket below it, and went to work.

* * *

Rachel Dean woke up with a bad taste in her mouth and a pain in her neck. But when she rolled over and opened her eyes, she saw a single bulb burning from a fixture beside an air vent in a cement ceiling, the bare mattress she was lying on and the four walls of a concrete, windowless cell. She screamed. The horror of no echo told her how solid the walls had to be to deaden the sound.

She didn’t know where she was, or how she’d gotten here. The last thing she remembered was going into her bedroom to turn off the television, and then... Oh, my God! The pain in her neck! That hadn’t been an insect sting. She’d been drugged. In her own home!

The room spun around her as she sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, then rubbed at the back of her neck. At that moment she panicked all over again.

Her presentation was this morning, and she wasn’t going to be there! What would her boss think? Hopefully, her secretary knew how to retrieve it. Someone else would give it. Someone else would get the client.

And then reality set in.

Missing a presentation was the least of her troubles. There was every possibility she would die here. Except for the mattress on which she was sitting, the only other things in the room were an old sink hanging precariously from one wall, and an ancient commode. Then she finally focused on the door—the huge metal door! Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t locked.

But when she got to her feet and staggered toward it, her hopes were dashed. It wouldn’t budge. She doubled up her fists and began pounding on it, screaming over