“If we were only an itch, I think we would have both found someone else to scratch it. Wanting my brother’s wife has torn me up for weeks. Karen knew the truth and it killed her, too.”
Mike nodded. “She a strong woman, Zach…but there are parts of her that are painfully vulnerable. Security is important to her and the fear of being abandoned has deep roots.”
“You’re talking about her parents.”
“She told you about them?”
“Yeah. The bastards.”
Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “Makes you appreciate our overbearing relatives.”
For a moment they were silent, both lost in their own thoughts.
“Mom and Dad will understand…about you.”
Mike stood and walked toward the window. “I’m not ready to tell them, Zach. Hell, I wasn’t ready to tell you. But I didn’t want Karen to have to keep this from you. She’s already given me so much.”
“Who else knows?”
“Not many people. Rena figured it out. Karen’s core friends, those you’ve met. No one in Hollywood.”
“That has to be hard on you.”
His brother shrugged. “Not really. Having Karen in my life has given me a place to vent. I’m going to miss that when she’s gone.”
“She’s not gone.”
Mike glanced over his shoulder. “You saying you’re ready to move out of Hilton? Because I don’t think Karen living in LA and you living in Hilton is going to work out for very long. Not to mention you can’t protect her from that far away.”
“I’ve been itching to get out of Utah for a while,” Zach explained as he stood and walked to his brother’s side. “If Karen wants to open a sanctuary for runaway kids, she’s going to have to be close to a big city. Kids don’t run away to Hilton.”
Mike turned toward him now. “You’re really serious about her.”
“Yeah. Yeah I am.”
Mike swiveled back to the window. “I’m going to be in Canada for weeks on end. I’ll encourage Karen to stay at the house…hell I’d give it to her if I thought she’d take it.”
“She didn’t want the car.” Thinking of the McLaren made Zach smile.
“Make her keep the car, would you? Such a sweet ride.”
Zach smiled and nodded.
“The house is secure…less media can get in while we’re going through the divorce. You can both stay there for as long as you like.”
Zach placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I have your back. No matter when and if you tell Mom and Dad…I’m there for you.”
Mike nodded and offered a sad smile. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
The door to the suite opened behind them and Gwen, Neil, and Nolan walked in. From the expression on Nolan’s face, Zach knew something was wrong.
“What happened?”
“Becky called.” Nolan’s hand shook as he lifted his phone in the air.
From the door to the bedroom, Karen stood with a towel to her hair. Her fresh clean scent drifted Zach’s way and called to him.
“Is she OK?”
Nolan shook his head. “She was crying so hard I couldn’t understand her.”
“Where is she?”
Gwen placed an arm around Nolan’s shoulders. “She didn’t say. Something about a truck stop, hiding.”
Neil had his cell phone to his ear. “Where are you?”
“Is he talking to Rick?” Karen asked.
Gwen nodded. “I think we should notify the police. They must realize the danger Becky is in by now.”
Karen nodded at Zach’s side. “I think so, too.”
Neil moved away from them as he told Rick what they’d learned. “She’s hiding in a storage closet of some sort. I have no idea which truck stop. No, she won’t. Call…right.” When Neil hung up, he addressed them.
“Rick and Judy are en route to Jeremy.”
“She could be at any truck stop.”
“Becky didn’t give you any hints?” Karen asked Nolan.
“Just that they’d been driving for a couple of hours.”
Zach looked at Neil. “We need a state map.”
Judy and Rick circled the lot of the second truck stop twice before pulling the car into a parking spot.
They walked side by side into the convenience store that accompanied the gas station and restaurant portion of the truck stop. “I’ll check out the bathroom first.”
Rick scanned the patrons as they walked by and said little. The man had a strange way about him, Judy decided. He had this perpetual smile when he was talking to her, and a look of killer intensity when he was concentrating.
He walked her to the door of the ladies’ room and turned his back to the wall to wait for her. He must be a bodyguard of some sort. The man had the expression don’t f**k with me, glaring at anyone who looked. And who would? Only the completely stupid would mess with the man.
Judy checked each empty stall and waited until every woman had left the room before moving on.
“Not in there.”
“Neil said a supply closet.”
“Let’s take a look around for her parents. If we see them, then we know she has to be here somewhere.”
“Or they may have left her,” Rick said.
They started in the restaurant, telling the waitress they were looking for friends. The search came up empty and they moved to the back of the truck stop. There were services for drivers ranging from an on-staff chiropractor to shoe shining. Not that Judy could think of truck drivers wearing shoes that needed shining. But that’s how these stops rolled. There were places for a girl the size of Becky to disappear everywhere.
Across from the bathroom, Judy scanned the store. Like her own personal shadow, Rick stood beside her. From the corner of her eye, she noticed someone who looked a lot like Mr. Applegate ducking behind a bookcase. Instead of being obvious, she moved in front of Rick, hiding her face and pretending to pick lint off his jacket.
His stellar smile took her breath for a moment as he looked down at her.
“Over my right shoulder, behind the bookcase…” she whispered.
He leaned down to hear her.
Rick lifted a hand to her hair and played with it while looking where she suggested.
“Tall, skinny…wearing a plaid long-sleeved shirt.”
“Dark brown hair?”
“Yeah.”
She lifted her purse from her shoulder and removed a compact. “Is he watching us?”