Carter Reed (Carter Reed 1)

ting my boss or thinking that Theresa had been the one to boot me from the account. I didn’t know, maybe it was just that Carter had been gone all week and life felt lonelier to me now, but I missed Mallory. I missed Amanda and I even, only slightly, missed Ben. I wasn’t going anywhere, not until she said something to me. “How’s Mallory?”

The entire pan fell off the counter. As it crashed to the floor and everyone in the café looked over, Amanda knelt down and starting grabbing all the cookies with frantic hands. I knelt beside her, she was blushing. The back of her neck was bright red. She smacked my hand. “Don’t!”

“Hey.” My eyes lit up. “Hey!” She talked to me.

She cursed under her breath, reaching for the cookies that went the farthest. “Go away, Emma.”

“No.” I frowned. “Why?”

“Because Mallory and Ben are gone,” she hissed. We were still on the floor. Most of the cookies had been collected.

My hand jerked and the few that had been in it were now crumbs. “What?”

“They’re gone. Like you. You’re gone too. Everyone’s gone.” She stood and brushed off her pants. “You should take that as a clue and stay away. I should take that as a clue and get a different job.”

“I don’t want to stay away,” I mumbled. I felt ridiculous.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care.” She glared at me before she took

the tray into the back room.

I followed. I heard a groan come from the bathroom hallway, but I didn’t look to see if it was the guard or not. I didn’t care.

When Amanda saw that I had followed her, more curses fell from her lips. She took the tray to the sink and wiped all of the cookies into the garbage beside it. “I know you texted on Monday, but I tossed my phone. Things don’t feel right to me.”

“You said that Mallory and Ben are gone?”

She jerked her head in a tight nod before she turned the water on. “Yeah. I packed all your stuff at the apartment and took a few things to Ben’s on Sunday, things that I thought Mallory would want, but his place was empty.”

“Empty?”

“They were gone. His clothes looked packed. He had boxes out in the kitchen with dishes. I went back Monday and everything was locked up. I tried the extra key, but they changed the locks. From what I could see, even his furniture was gone. They took off, Emma.” The pan was in the sink and the water was on, but she didn’t move to clean it. She studied me instead. “You look good. I’m glad someone’s doing okay with this whole ordeal.”

I stepped back, as if slapped, but she didn’t know. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, that’d been me. “I’m sorry that you got dragged into this.”

“Into what?” she snapped. “Doesn’t seem like anything happened. The body’s been missing, who the hell did that? Then you left, now those two. It’s just me. I didn’t even know what to do with your stuff so I put it all into storage.”

“You need me to pay for that?”

She shrugged, putting the pan underneath the water now. “It doesn’t matter. Ben gave me enough money so it’s paid for a year.”

“Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “Ben gave you money?”

“Yeah. Why?”

He wasn’t the type to give money, much less have money. “Where’d it come from?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say, just tossed me a big envelope and told me to take care of Mallory’s stuff. I didn’t question it. After you took off, I learned that maybe it’s better if I don’t ask any questions.”

My eyes narrowed. “How’d Ben look?”

“What do you mean?” She grew weary now, more than she had been at the beginning.

“Was he his normal grouchy self?”

“When’s he not his normal grouchy self?” She paused with the pan in her hand. “Actually, now that you mention it, he looked happy last week.” She shuddered. “I don’t even want to know what that means. I took the money and did what he said. I told you before that I would take care of your apartment. Two of my co-workers helped me clean and I left your keys on the counter. Your landlord seemed fine with that.”

I nodded. I tried to tell myself that things were fine. I was safe. Amanda seemed fine, pissy, but fine. However, I couldn’t shake what she told me. Mallory and Ben were gone. What’d that mean? That had to mean something. And Ben had money. Ben never had money. Something was off, well, considering the situation, something was really off.