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It wasn’t stalking if I was worried about her, right?

You are one-hundred-percent stalking, my inner voice replied wryly. I ignored it, coming to a stop outside Ruth’s door again. I’d come here three times yesterday, and although there had been several people milling around outside the apartment complex, none of them had seen Ruth or a person fitting Vaughn’s description. I had knocked on her front door, her back door, and her windows,like an absolute creeper, but not so much as a shadow had shifted.

As I stood in front of her faded, scuffed-up front door again, I took a look around the building. It was fairly uninteresting as far as apartment buildings went, and it featured four units in cube-like configurations and continued down the property in long and short layouts. With her unit being on theground floor, it was easy enough to, well… snoop. But even today, I saw no movement.

I checked my watch. Ten in the morning. It was late enough in the morning for pounding, so that’s what I did. I pounded my fist on the door so loud, there was no way she would have missed it. “Ruth!” I shouted.

Nothing.

“Shit,” I hissed, stepping away. She hadn’t gone somewhere with him permanently,had she? I would throttle her. I would absolutely, unabashedly, wring her gorgeous neck if I found out she’d gone somewhere with that piece of shit and left herself with no resources. “She wouldn’t,” I muttered to myself, peering up at the white siding and then back down again. “Come on, Ruth. You’re smarter than that.”

Reluctantly, I left the apartment complex. I had patients to see, but I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts grounded where they belonged. It was like being on Mars where there was a third less gravity, and my thoughts bounced too high and too far from rationality before managing to touch down again.

I managed to keep my head on Earth while I helped a patient with MS and adjusted his prescription, and my thoughts wandered just a little when the older couple I was visiting went on a little too long about which arthritis creams they had tried and liked—they squabbled over the specific names of them, and ultimately didn’t end up naming any brand names I’d ever heard of anyway—and by lunch, I knew my agitation was taking over.

I checked my phone again as I parked outside the practice.Ruth still hadn’t even opened my message. I was starting to feel a little desperate and more than a bit unrealistically panicked. It wasn’t something I could take to the authorities—not if I wanted to remain even remotely respected by the community for my sound judgment. But something wasso very wrong. I knew it. Deep in my being and right on the surface of my tongue where it tingled and tempted me to uselessly shout her name until I found her again, I knew it.

A cool wind shushed through the trees, slipping over my skin and drying the thin layer of perspiration that seemed to be ever-present on my body this time of year. I glanced up, watching with detached interest as the breeze picked up, rippling over verdant trees and filling the quiet street with a soothing susurrus that brought with it the promise of autumn. My eyes followed the wave in the leaves, traveling down the row of trees and to the crosswalk that separated our row of buildings from Ruth’s.

My eyes landed on the shaded walkway across the street. Ruth wouldn’t be at Kiss-Met, would she? No, that was too easy.

But Gemma.

I mentally face-palmed. Gemma. I’d been operating in a hazy, confused panic, butof course, Gemma would have a better idea of what Ruth was doing. I hadn’t thought to ask her because I didn’t have her number, but it was Monday. She’d be at work. Was it a little obsessive, a little manic to show up at my fake girlfriend’s best friend’s place of employment to ask if she knew anything about the fake girlfriend running away with another fake boyfriend?

Yeah. That was weird as hell.

But was I doing it? Abso-fucking-lutely, I was. I jogged across the distance, looking left and right quickly to make sure I didn’t get my dumb ass ran over in the process, and in minutes, found myself in front of the historic office building smashed between an old-school barber and a gift shop. Wintry, air-conditioned air sighed over my shoulders as I entered, and I hooked right, past the sign with the businesses and their floor numbers, and to the elevator. When it opened, I found Rook standing there, looking down at his phone as usual.

He glanced up, swung a look from my face to my shoes, and back to my sweat-beaded face. “Reed. You look… unhinged.”

“Thank you,” I panted, coming to stand next to him and punching the third-floor button.

Rook gave me a wary eyebrow crinkle. “What screw came loose and who’s wielding the screwdriver? You looked like this Saturday night, too.”

“Kind of you to notice,” I bit out impatiently.

The doors began to close, but Rook shot out an arm and stopped them. “I have concerns.”

“Rook.” I rolled my eyes. “Not now. I also have concerns, but I’m in a hurry.”

“Does this have something to do with that girl from the other night?” he asked. The doors tried to close again, but Rook kept his arm braced, and it didn’t so much as budge.

My brow furrowed, mirroring his expression. “You mean Ruth?”

“That was Ruth?” he asked, looking confused.

“She was my date on Saturday.Whyare you asking?”

“I saw her Saturday night talking to another man in the foyer outside the ballroom,” Rook said evenly, like he was delivering the results of a basic metabolic panel. “Is that what this is about?”

“Yes,” I replied slowly. I reached out my arm to hold the other side of the open elevator doors, my focus fully on Rook now. “What did you see?”

“They didn’t look happy.” He looked away in thought like he was trying to remember the finer details. “I caught a few words. Do you have any idea why they might be talking about a friend’s resume?”

The line between my eyebrows deepened. “Not off the top of my head. But you said they looked unhappy?”

“She told him to leave,” Rook said matter-of-factly. “And he said he would burn all her bridges. Frankly, he seemed like a total asshole, and I thought about stepping in.”