After I had explained the situation to my brothers, my anxiety heightened.
Brad was calmly seated at the long boardroom table while Mason paced the conference room.
“So, he’s here. In town?” Mason asked.
“I’m assuming so,” I answered. “Who else would’ve left her the note?”
Brad steepled his fingers by his lips.
“I’ve called our security team. They’re at the house now, and tomorrow, they’ll accompany Becky to drop off the girls and during all her errands if she needs to do any.”
The security company I’d hired, we also used at Brisken Printing Corporation and at any outside company event or if we needed personal security, which we typically didn’t. Normally, we were three grown men who could handle our own business.
“It’ll be fine,” Brad said, though his calm was receding.
“Fine?” Mason threw up both hands, already giving in to panic and rage. “We got a crazy man on the loose, following around our nanny and stalking our girls’ school. I wanna say I told you so, but I won’t.”
“Don’t,” I said, not wanting to hear it. My hands went to my hips as I stared outside at the other high-rises in the horizon.
“Did you contact the PI?” Mason asked, pacing a hole in the industrial carpet.
“Yeah. I gave him everything he needed to do a thorough search.” Now that I had complete information on this guy, I’m sure something would come up. “I paid an expedited fee, so we should be able to find out about him before today’s over.”
I needed this guy in jail. Stat.
She wouldn’t go into hiding anymore, and she wouldn’t feel the compulsion to run away. Whatever this was, whatever was happening now, it had been meant to be. I had been meant to find her and meet her and love her.
Mason dropped to the nearest chair. “How did we get here? What could we have done to prevent this?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Because if this asshole wanted to find her, there was nothing I could have done to stop him.
I wanted this confrontation. This would only lead to legal ramifications, where I could keep this guy far away from Becky and the kids, where she wouldn’t be scared anymore to do the normal things I knew she loved to do—go biking, go out to a restaurant by herself without watching her back, and take the girls to a park, unafraid of who she might see there.
I reached for my phone and texted my security team to tell me when Kenzo, one of the head guys, arrived at the school. He texted back immediately and was only a few minutes away.
Brad kicked up his feet on the conference table. “They’ll be fine. Today, we are securing the house. Tomorrow, they’ll roll up at the school with security, like they’re famous. Then, we’ll find this guy, and we’ll have a good talk with him.” He ran one hand through his hair. “All will be fine. You guys are freaking out about a note.”
I texted Becky next, but she didn’t answer.
Kenzo will be there any second, I told myself. She’s probably getting the girls settled in the car, or Mary is keeping her preoccupied with her stories of the pumpkin patch.
Panicking would not help me right now.
The phone ringing from my back pocket broke up my random thoughts, and I plucked out my cell and answered. “Hey, Becky.”
“Charles”—her voice was a garbled sob—“Mary is missing.”
Her four words had my heart stopping in my chest.
It was an out-of-body experience, hearing the words but not knowing what to do with them.
I stood utterly still, unmoving, barely breathing.
There were a few other times where I’d had this sort of panic attack, not sure how to react, unable to connect my brain to my body.
For instance, when the doctors had told me that Natalie was dead. When Mason had called me at work, sobbing that my parents had been in an accident. And now … when Becky told me that my sweet Mary was missing.
“Charles?” She had repeated my name a few times before I responded.
“Mary’s missing? Where are you?”
Brad jumped off his chair, and both he and Mason faced me directly, their looks of complete shock most likely mirroring mine.
“I’m at the school. She didn’t go out of her normal door because they had a field trip. They dismissed from the south entrance and…” Her sobs heightened.
I was slow to respond, even slower to react. I should have been out of the corporate office and in my car by now.