Goody Two Shoes (Invertary 2)

Danny grinned as he gave her hand a squeeze. “Vegas is looking good now, huh?”

He wasn’t wrong.

There was a lot of noise from outside the building. Danny peeked out of the door. Flashes went off. “We’re surrounded, sweetheart.”

Caroline groaned. “I need to call for help, but I left my phone in the kitchen.” Josh was going to kill her. How many times had he stressed taking the phone with her? Yep. She was a dead woman.

Danny pulled his cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’d call Josh, but I’m not allowed. Although that might just be an American rule.”

Caroline rolled her eyes as she took the phone. She couldn’t call Josh anyway—she couldn’t remember his number.

“Come out, Caroline,” the voices outside called. “We only want a photo.”

“Josh, Caroline, what are you doing in there?” someone else called.

“What is this place?” a guy’s voice said. “It looks like a giant penis.”

“It’s a folly,” Danny shouted through the door. “It’s supposed to look like a penis.”

“Josh? Is that you?” a guy’s eager voice shouted. “Why won’t you come out and do an interview?”

Danny adjusted his tie as though he was about to step outside.

“Don’t you dare,” Caroline warned. “Josh told you no more standing in for him.”

He was so crestfallen she almost felt sorry for him.

“If we can get them out, we can take a picture of them in front of this giant dick. That will sell,” someone said.

“Give me a boost up to that window and I’ll see what I can do,” another voice said.

Caroline was out of time, and there was only one number, apart from her own, that she knew by heart. She opened the phone and dialled the community centre. It was time to call in the domino boys.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Where the hell is she?” Josh spat. They’d called the castle, the pub, Kirsty’s shop and the community centre. No one had seen Caroline. “Invertary is not that big. Why can’t we find her?”

“Calm down,” Mitch told him.

It made Josh want to punch him. “Has anyone ever in the history of the world actually felt calmer when someone ordered them to?”

He could have sworn he heard Mitch mutter, “Smartass.”

Josh stopped pacing in the middle of Caroline’s living room floor. “You don’t think she was taken, do you? I’ve seen the movie. It didn’t end well. Liam Neeson went all ninja on the kidnappers. I don’t have those kind of skills.”

Mitch ran a hand down his face. “We’ve been over this. There’s no sign of a struggle.”

“Her bag is still here. Her keys. Why would she leave without her keys?”

“The back door was open. We were here. It’s not like she’d get locked out if she left. She’s probably gone for a walk. It’s a small town. Someone will have seen her.”

“Got her,” Donaldson shouted from the front of the house.

Josh and Mitch ran out. There was a decorating crew setting up scaffolding, but no Caroline.

“Where is she?” Josh demanded.

The cop ran a hand through his hair. It was obvious the job was getting to him. Josh didn’t need to be a shrink to recognise burnout when he saw it. “She’s stuck in Macgregor’s folly with your singing clone.”