A Bargain with the Boss
She hesitated.
He raised a brow, waiting.
“All right.” She withdrew a paper from her purse, unfolding it. “Since you insist.”
“What’s that?” He tried to look, but she pulled it toward her chest.
“You can give me a signing bonus.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-eight thousand, two hundred and sixty-three dollars.”
Now she really had him curious.
“Where did that number come from?”
“None of your business.” She refolded the paper and stuffed it back in her purse.
“Seriously. What are you paying for?”
“Seriously. None of your business.”
Tuck told himself to shut up and take the victory. “You’ll call him.”
“I will.”
“I mean now.”
“Right now?”
He gave a sharp nod.
“I suppose.” She turned again for the front door.
He followed and she twisted her head to look at him.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I do. I don’t.” No, that wasn’t true. He couldn’t imagine she’d lie about making the call. “I do trust you. But I want to see what happens.”
She unlocked the front door, pushing it open. “I don’t know for sure where he is. I didn’t lie to you about that. But he did leave an emergency number.”
Tuck wanted to ask exactly how bad things had to get before she decided it was an emergency. But he didn’t want to start another argument.
He stayed silent, and she dropped her purse on a table in the small foyer and extracted her phone, dialing as she moved into the living room.
“Did he get a special cell phone?” Tuck asked. That made the most sense.
Amber shook her head, listening as the call obviously rang through.
She sat down on a cream-colored loveseat and crossed her legs. Tuck perched on an end of the sofa at a right angle to her. It faced a gas fireplace and a row of small watercolor seascapes.
“Hello,” said Amber. “Can you connect me to Dixon Tucker’s room?”
A hotel, obviously. Tuck wanted to know where. He wished he could see the area code.
“He’s not?” asked Amber, her tone sharper.
Tuck focused on her expression.
She was frowning. “I don’t understand. When did he do that?”
Tuck didn’t want to be suspicious, but he couldn’t help but wonder if she was playing him. Was she going to pretend she’d tried to get Dixon but failed?
“That’s less than a week. Did he say where he was going?” She met Tuck’s eyes, sitting up straight and bracing her feet on the carpet. Either something was actually wrong, or Amber had a great future in acting. “Yes. I understand.”
“What?” he asked her.
“Thank you,” she said into the phone. “Goodbye.”
“What did they say? Who was that? Where’s Dixon?”
Amber set the phone onto the sofa cushion beside her. “He left.”
“Left where?”
“Scottsdale.”
“Arizona?”
“It’s called Highland Luminance.”
It struck Tuck as an odd name. “A hotel?”
“A wellness retreat.”
The words weren’t making sense.
“What’s that?” Tuck asked. “And what was he doing there?”
“Getting well. At least he was supposed to be getting well. But he left.” Concern furrowed her brow. “He left after only a few days. Why would he do that?”
“Why would he go there in the first place?”
Sure, Dixon’s divorce had been ugly. But people went through ugly divorces all the time.
“For help,” said Amber. “They have a spa, yoga, fresh air and peace, organic food, emotional and physical therapy.”
“You’re trying to tell me that my brother took off to Arizona for organic food and yoga.”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything.”
Tuck searched his brain for an explanation. “None of this makes sense.”
“He was exhausted,” said Amber. “Upset by—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve told me all that. But it’s not credible. Dixon’s a smart, solid, capable man.”
Amber’s voice rose. “You worked him into the ground.”
“I didn’t do a thing.”
“Exactly,” she said with finality.
He glared at her. “You’re saying this is my fault?”