Page 25

Shine arrived home a little after midnight, tired and ready for sleep. The first thing he did was text Rowan, telling her he was ready to see her and to call him when she woke. He needed to dust, and he had a stack of clothes that needed to be washed, but cleaning the house wouldn't take too long in the morning. He could spend the next two days tidying up. He didn't need to be back on base again until Friday morning, which meant Wednesday and Thursday would be about cleaning and seeing her. Just the thought of pulling Rowan into his arms and showing her how much he missed her was making him hard.

After jerking off, he dropped to his bed and didn't wake up until the birds outside his window demanded to be heard. He rolled over and grabbed his phone, expecting to see a reply from his woman, but there was nothing other than notifications from his bank and some news sites.

A weird feeling slid through him. Had something happened? He got up, his thoughts on what they’d done before he left for his mission. Rowan hadn’t given any indication that she wanted nothing to do with him .

After coffee, he decided to call his woman. Maybe she'd been busy. It was close to noon, which didn't surprise him, but what shocked him was the lack of contact from her.

The call went straight to voicemail. What did that mean? Was her phone off? He knew she turned the setting to do-not-disturb during sessions. Maybe she was in a session.

He made eggs and toast then sent a text to his team, making sure everyone was doing okay. When they'd formed this team, he'd taken it upon himself to text everyone after coming back from a mission just to check-in.

The replies to his text ranged from serious, Sharp saying that one of the girls had strep throat, to silly, as Apple sent a video of himself dancing in his underwear. Then Squat asked him how he was doing. He felt silly telling the team that his woman was ignoring him, but these guys were the only ones who would care.

His phone rang right after he sent the text telling them that Rowan hadn’t called or texted after he’d sent her a message. It was Griz.

“Dude, do you think something is wrong?”

Shine let go a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe she dumped me and is ghosting me.”

“Do you really think the woman you were in a plane crash with would just ignore you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

"Really? You two shared a heavy experience, and then when she met you again, she was willing to open a relationship with you. And now she's just ignoring you? Does that really sound like the woman you know? She isn't a teenager. She's a thirty-year-old woman who is a psychologist. I don't think she would ghost you."

Griz’s words hit hard. Rowan wouldn’t just ignore him .

“No, you’re right. No way would Rowan ghost me. We both were devastated when we didn’t have contact information last time. She would leave me something, a text or a voicemail telling me to go away and never contact her. She wouldn’t just walk without an explanation.”

“I think you should call Thario and see if he can find her. I mean, she could have been in a car wreck, which would be horrible. But what if she’s in the ICU and can’t answer the phone?”

“Fuck, Griz. Now I’m freaking out.”

“Hey, don’t freak out alone. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. We’ll go see Thario together. Give me time to get dressed.”

“Sure. And Griz, thanks.”

“I’ve got you.”

The call ended, and Shine thought he was going to crawl out of his skin before Griz arrived. Fear about what could have happened hit, and he felt like he was going crazy with worry.

Shine texted Thario, telling him that he was worried about Rowan, but he hadn’t heard back by the time Griz arrived. His buddy came in and gave him a quick hug before glancing around.

“What are you looking for?” Shine asked.

“Making sure your coffee pot was off and you didn’t leave the stove on.”

“Really?”

"Dude, you're obviously worried about Rowan. I'm just looking out for you. Come on, let's go to Thario's. I called him and told him you were worried. He received your text and is gathering information. Come on. Let's go."

Shine wiped his hand down his face and blew out a heavy breath. “You’re right. I am out of my mind with worry. I can’t help thinking something terrible happened. It’s not like her to ignore me. I know we haven’t been reconnected for long, but I feel like she would have left a note if she was flying somewhere or had gone to a place that didn’t have cell reception.”

Griz opened the door, and he followed his buddy to his car. He was glad he had friends like Griz and Thario. Otherwise who knows what would have happened to him.

When they arrived at Thario's place, he tried to act like he wasn't freaking out, but he couldn't push away the fear running over his good senses. He knew better than to panic, but for some weird reason, he was almost in panic mode over Rowan not contacting him. Griz's words about Rowan potentially being in the ICU had him messed up.

Thario didn’t get up from his computer but started talking the second they stepped into his house. “I did some looking, and there is one Jane Doe in the hospital and none in the morgue. The woman in the hospital isn’t Caucasian. So I think it’s safe to say she isn’t Rowan.”

That made him feel better for a moment, but then more worry hit. “Then where is she?”

"Well, her credit cards haven't been used. Let me…" There was quiet for a moment. "Huh."

“What?” Griz leaned in, searching Thario’s computer screen for what he’d seen. Shine did the same thing.

“What did you see?” Shine asked.

“Someone reported her missing. Her receptionist called the police when she didn’t show up for work on Monday. She hasn’t been at work all week.”

“Fuck.” Shine didn’t know what to think.

“Let’s go to her place and check it out.”

Thario clicked a few more screens. “The police went, and they didn’t find anything. No one answered.”

Shine clenched his fists as his stomach went sour. “We have to go over there and find out what is going on. ”

Griz pulled out his phone. “I’m going to send a note to the other guys. Maybe they’ll have ideas.”

Thario glanced up at Griz. “Send them here if they want to look into what’s going on. We can have this as our home base.”

Shine clasped onto Thario’s shoulder. “You’re a good man. Thank you.”

“No worries. Happy to help.”

Shine was glad to have Griz there to drive him to Rowan’s house. He was certain he would have gotten into a wreck if he had to drive.

Approaching the door, he could see a note. Griz pulled it off and read the note.

“Great, the cops left a note for her to call when she returned.”

“Fuck. What are they doing to find her?”

“You okay with me breaking in?” Griz asked.

“Sure am.”

It took Griz about thirty seconds to get the door opened. They went in and closed the door behind them. The place smelled a little stale, and then an unpleasant odor hit. He didn't want to think of her possibly dead in here. But the scent wasn't strong enough to be a body.

Griz smelled it, too, and shook his head. "It's trash, not her."

“Fuck. No way she would have left her trash inside like this. Not if she knew she was leaving.”

Griz moved closer to her bedroom and stopped. “Look at this.”

Shine stepped over, seeing a lamp on the floor. “That’s wrong.”

Griz stepped around the mess and stuck his head in the bedroom door. “Her phone is in here.”

“Shit. ”

“She didn’t leave with her phone. Someone was in here.”

“We should call the police.”

“Do you think they’ll do anything?”

Griz shrugged. “We have no idea where she went or what happened. We also only have two days off. She needs the cops searching for her.”

“How are we going to explain being inside her house?”

Griz moved to the kitchen and opened a few drawers before he bent and pulled out a key. “Say she gave you a key. They won’t know. You can give it back once she’s home.”

Shine pulled out his phone and punched in the numbers for emergency. He hated that it had come to this. He couldn’t believe the cops hadn’t entered her place to look for her. She was in trouble, and the police had done nothing to help.

It took about thirty minutes for the police to show up, and in that time, Thario and the rest of the team had started looking for Rowan but hadn’t found anything. He felt sick about everything. Rowan was out there somewhere, probably afraid, and they had no way of finding her.

When the police showed up, he was glad Griz was there to confirm they were overseas on a mission. If he’d been around, he couldn’t imagine what he would have to go through to prove that he was innocent. But if he’d been here, maybe Rowan would still be around.

He left her place close to five and headed back to Thario’s house. His heart felt heavy. Had the police taken her disappearance seriously when her receptionist called, they would have already been looking for her.

“We’ll find her,” Griz said as they parked out front of Thario’s house .

“What if…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Then we’ll track down the bastard and make him pay.”

Shine didn't want to make someone pay. He wanted Rowan with him. The thought of never seeing her again overwhelmed him. He didn't want to think about the bad things that could have happened to her. He knew from his time as a SEAL exactly how disgusting people could be. He'd seen it firsthand and hated the idea of Rowan being subjected to that kind of torture. He had to find her. That was the only acceptable response.