You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,143

and I asked her to stop by and check in on her. They’re friends, you know.” She pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her jacket and scowled at the screen. “Of course, Zena hasn’t texted. Those two are a pair. So unreliable! She might not have even gone over to Willow’s!” Donna must’ve seen Rebecca because she said hastily, “I gotta go,” and forced a smile.

“Just keep me in the loop!” The shorter woman hurried to the women’s restroom, and Donna pasted a smile on her wan face. “Sorry,” she said as she stepped to the reception area and stood behind the desk. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for James Cahill.”

“The owner. Oh.” Her neatly plucked eyebrows drew together. “He’s . . . well, I’m not sure where he is. Let me check.” She made a quick call on her cell phone, talked softly, then clicked off and pasted on her smile again. “He’s supposed to be in the lot,” she told Rebecca. “At least that’s what Bobby, our foreman here, thinks.”

“The lot?”

“Yeah. The Christmas tree lot. Out back.” Donna motioned toward the rear of the building. “Next to the café. You can get there through that hallway,” she said, motioning to the short corridor where she and the other woman had so recently been deep in conversation.

“Thanks.” Rebecca was outside in a shot, crossing the parking area and ducking under an archway to the lot where cut trees were displayed beneath strands of lights. Gravel paths led through the clusters of spruces, pines, and firs, while Christmas music played softly from speakers attached to the exterior of the café. Rebecca barely noticed. She cut past a few customers and scanned the area just to spy James, dog at his heels, striding through a back gate to the surrounding forest of uncut trees.

“Great,” she muttered, hurrying after him.

While this part of his property was well-lit, music lilting, the smells from the café tantalizing, the adjoining hilly acres were shrouded in darkness, thin moonlight casting foreboding shadows over the snowy ground. Rebecca took off after James, ignoring the nagging thought that he might not be all that happy to see her. She had ditched him the other night.

Well, too bad. It was time they worked things out.

To find Megan.

And, truthfully, to put her feelings for James Cahill to rest forever.

“Closure,” she said aloud—such a popular term these days—and probably impossible with James.

Well, so be it.

CHAPTER 42

As he left the lighted lot, James’s mobile phone began to buzz. He answered without looking at the caller and regretted it the minute he heard Sophia’s breathless voice.

“We need to talk,” she said without preamble.

“I thought we were on the same page,” he said, irritated as he searched the ground while walking through the rows of trees that had been planted seven or eight years prior. He was on a mission, trying to find Bruce Porter’s phone, which must have dropped out of his pocket as he helped a customer cut and carry one of the fresh Douglas firs.

But Sophia was having none of it. “I need to see you.”

“We’ve been through this.” He wasn’t going to be budged. And he needed to get off this call so he could punch in Porter’s number to find the guy’s cell.

“I’m serious.” And she sounded it. “It won’t take long.”

“Then tell me now.” He stepped through a row of spruces.

“You need to hear this, from me. Face-to-face. It’s not the kind of thing you discuss on the phone.”

Jesus-God, did Sophia know something about what happened to Megan? What else could be so damned important?

“Just tell me.”

“I’m serious: I need to see you.”

Shit! His hand clenched over the phone. “Fine.” He didn’t have time for this.

From somewhere in the distance, he heard someone calling his name. “James?” A woman.

“I’ll come over,” Sophia was saying a little more brightly.

“No!” He didn’t want to be completely alone with her, not at his house. Not a good idea. “Meet me at the inn. In the bar.”

“No, no. I work there. It could . . . it could get awkward.”

“Why?”

“James?”

On the phone, Sophia insisted, “This is important,” and the edge to her voice finally compelled him. “Listen,” he said into his phone as he scanned the darkened woods. “I gotta go! Meet me in an hour. At the inn. That’s the best I can do.”

“But—” He clicked off the phone and dialed Bruce’s cell number, listening for the ringtone and the woman who was . . . where?