35

 

Jamie wasn’t sure if she could find her next breath.

Ryan was dead, and Andrew was missing.

Jamie opened her mouth to tell Michael the truth, but stopped. Honesty was not usually the best policy when it came to interrogating criminals.

“Jamie, I need to talk with you in private.” Enrique’s words tumbled out in a rush.

Their gazes met.

Enrique dead bolted the exterior door, shot a warning glance to Michael, and motioned for Jamie to step in the doorway of the other room. “You can’t tell him the truth about Ryan being dead. If he’s telling the truth about Andrew being missing and he finds out Ryan was murdered, he’ll fall apart. We won’t get any more information from him.”

“I don’t care about the money he embezzled. I just want to find Andrew. For Zink.”

“That’s what I want, too.”

Their gazes locked.

“Really, I do, Jamie. It’s important to you, so it’s important to me. But we can’t tell him the truth until we get whatever information he has. Anything he tells us could help us find Andrew.”

“I’ll let you decide when to tell him, but we need to make sure people are looking for Andrew.”

He pulled out his phone. “I’ll take care of that right now.” He stepped further into the room, leaving Jamie at the doorway watching Michael.

Enrique finished the call. “They’re putting out an alert. We don’t have much information, but that’s the best we can do for now. I’ll call again when we get more information from Michael.” He put a hand on her arm. “I hope we’ll have time to talk later. Really talk, but for now we have to focus on Ryan and the embezzling scheme.”

“What about Andrew?”

“We need to know the whole situation if we want to find Andrew. If he’s been kidnapped, there must be a reason. Only Michael knows the reason. If he falls apart we don’t get the reason and we don’t find Andrew.”

“But—”

“Trust me on this, Jakowski.”

“I do trust you.”

“Does that mean we can talk about a way to fix some of my mistakes later? After we find Andrew?” He stepped closer, his arms encircled her.

“I…I think that might be a good idea.”

He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. A promise of things to come. “OK, then, let’s go find Andrew.”

He gave her a gentle squeeze, and then his arms fell away.

They went back into the other room to face the man sitting on the bed, who had no idea his best friend was dead and his son was missing.

Jamie pushed the jumbled thoughts about Enrique out of her mind. It was time to focus on Michael. He had to know something that would help them find Andy. Please God; we couldn’t have come this close only to fail.