Only the ring was gone.
Of course he remembered.
“You recognize it,” Jett whispered.
I nodded. Of course he remembered. I had shown its photograph to every coworker, begging them to tell me if they ever saw it.
My fingers closed around the bag.
The couple had possessed the one thing
my mother still had when she vanished.
Whatever they had done to her, they knew where she was.
Jett unlocked his office and pulled up the security footage without another word.
“She didn’t even notice.”
We watched the couple finish their meal. At first, nothing seemed unusual beyond the man’s constant glances at his phone. Then the woman reached into her purse, searching for something. As she withdrew her hand, a small object caught briefly on the clasp.
My mother’s ring dropped onto the seat.
It rolled into the narrow gap between the cushion and the wall, disappearing from view.
“She didn’t even notice,” Jett murmured.
A minute later, the man’s phone lit up. He answered, listened, and went rigid. Whatever he heard drained the color from his face. He turned the screen toward the woman.
“They weren’t running from the check.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
They stood
so quickly that the woman knocked her chair sideways. The man seized her coat and purse, and they hurried toward the entrance without looking at the bill.
“They weren’t running from the check.”
I was already moving.
The morning valet was different from the one who had worked the previous night, but Jett found him in the employee lounge.
“Did they say where they were going?”
“I’m coming with you.”
He frowned, thinking. “The man told me to bring their car fast. Then he called someone and said, ‘Call the hospital. Tell them we’re coming.’”
Jett grabbed his keys. “I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“Laura, you don’t know who these people are.”
