She nods slowly and wraps her trembling hands around the mug. She’s hunched in on herself, and she briefly looks up to meet my gaze. “Didn’t you get broken into not long ago?”

“Too many times,” I mutter. “It’s awful.”

“What did you do when you…you know. Found out someone had broken in?”

Grimacing, I reply, “Searched my house with my gun out.”

She blinks. “Seriously? You didn’t freak out?”

“Well, sure.” I sip my coffee. Ugh. Yuck. “Even though my stuff was all over the place, it didn’t sink in until after the police had left. I was mostly pissed at someone breaking in, but when that wore off, it was a total ‘shit, someone broke into my house’ moment, and I went crazy. I still don’t feel totally safe in my house now and I have an alarm. It’s hard knowing someone’s been in your house without your permission.”

Natalie shudders. “I’d be a total mess if they’d gotten in. Look at me now—I’m bordering on an anxiety attack from a brick at my window.”

And the note. But I won’t be mentioning that right now.

“Do you have an alarm system?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I’ve been meaning to get one for a couple of weeks now, but something always got in the way of me making the call. I guess I have to do it now.”

“I have the card for the company who did mine in the car. The cops rushed it through, so I’ll speak to Devin later when I see him again since he’s real busy out there right now, and I’ll get him to contact them for you. They’ll forward you the bill, but they’ll have it done tomorrow.”

“Really? That would be amazing.” A little tension leaves her shoulders.

“Really.” I flick my eyes toward the clock on the stove. “I have to go to the office now, but I’ll write this up and see if I can find anything about your ex’s location last night.” I pat her hand. “We’ll get this figured out. Don’t worry.”

“I know. I trust you.”

I put the phone down and drop my head to my desk. Sweet Jesus. Nick Lucas, Natalie’s ex, is the most elusive man in Texas right now.

Two hours of phone calls to a ridiculous number of people has wielded absolutely no information about his whereabouts of last night, and his phone rolls straight over to voicemail. These calls are after a staff meeting, a phone call from Dad confirming that he’ll see me at three, signing off on a new contract for Mike, a random drop-by from my decorator about his inability to get the shade of pink I picked for the kitchen, an interview with an eighteen-year-old high-school almost-graduate for Marshall’s job, and a text exchange with Devin about Natalie and her alarm system.

At least Bek brought me a cupcake at lunchtime. Which I haven’t had a chance to eat, because well, I used the thirty-second break I had earlier to pee and yell desperately for a coffee.

I say yell. I begged. Unashamedly.

I sit back up and hit the space bar on my laptop to wake it up. I add to my spreadsheet of calls Bek insisted I make, and I hit save, then print. I close the computer once I have the list in my hand and tuck it into my file marked Owens, N.

The clock reads two thirty.

“Oh, someone give me a break,” I mutter to myself, standing and heading for the bathroom.

I look like a bird made its home in my hair and a raccoon adopted me.

I grab the wet wipes from the cupboard and pull my spare makeup down, too. And here everyone laughed at me for keeping makeup at the office. My father would kill me if I turned up this afternoon looking anything less than one hundred percent professional, and not because he’s harsh, but because the mayor is, unfortunately, a lifelong friend, and it’s expected.

Put it this way: If my brothers aren’t all in ties and button-down shirts, Dad will pull his spare sets out of his trunk and force them to get changed. Yes, this has happened, and I have it on video.

Ten minutes later, I have a fresh face of makeup that makes me look somewhat human. If my stomach could stop growling, too. That would be even better.

I grab the cupcake from my desk, and I’m about to pull the wrapper off when Brody walks into my office.

“What are you doin’? We gotta go. Now.”

I groan. “I’m hungry!”

“It’s just past lunch!”

“Which I didn’t get because I’ve been workin’ all day,” I argue, taking my purse from the back of my desk. I throw it over my shoulder and pick my phone up. “So, long story short, I’m eatin’ it in your car.”

He pauses for a moment as we go downstairs. “Only because I’m in a squad car.”

“Obviously.”

“And you’re vacuuming your crumbs after.”

“In another life,” I reply with a grin shot over my shoulder. “That’s why y’all hire cleaners.”

“Hours cut,” he grumbles, opening the car. “Something about cuts the mayor wanted. Now, we have to clean up ourselves.”

“Oh, you poor little babies.” I snort as I get in. “Imagine having to clean up after yourself like actual adults! How horrifying for you.”

“Hey, you have a cleaner.”

“Who comes in once a week. Other than that, I keep a full set of cleaning equipment in the cupboard in the basement. We clean our own offices, thank you.”

Okay, so I think Grecia does Mike’s sometimes, but as long as it’s tidy, I don’t care if he’s offering sexual favors in return for her vacuuming a couple of times a week.

“You wanna come clean my office? Charlotte’s on my back because she had to empty my trash twice in three days.”

“Charlotte, huh?” I take a bite of my cupcake as the police receptionist is brought up.

“Noelle, she’s been crushin’ on me for three years. If I were interested, I’d have fucked her already.”

“Straight to the point as always.”

He laughs and pulls up outside the Oleander hotel where the…whatever-the-hell kinda boring hour this is gonna be…is.

“You got crumbs on my seat,” he grumbles when I get up.

“Apparently, you should take Charlotte up on her crush, ’cause you sound like you need to get laid.” I bend over to brush the crumbs off. Most go outside the car, thankfully.

“Dad’s gonna kill you if you go in there stuffing your face with cake.”

“And I’m gonna kill someone if I don’t get some food in my belly. I’m hangry right now.”

“Hangry?”

“Hungry and angry.”

“There’s a ship name for that?”

I raise my eyebrows. “It’s a very real thing. I’m hungry and angry, so I’m hangry. Really hangry.”

“You’re so fuckin’ weird.”

“This, from you.”

“Do you two ever stop fightin’?” Dad interrupts us at the door of the hotel. “Noelle, why are you eating?”

“Because I haven’t eaten a damn thing all day.”

“She’s hangry,” Brody inputs.

“What’s hangry?” Dad looks between us.

“Can’t a girl eat her cupcake in peace?”

“Noella!”

“Oh, fuck it.”

Nonna ambles up behind Dad and shoves him out of the way. With her silver-peppered black hair knotted into a bun on top of her head, she squints at me through apparently brand-new glasses and raps her cane against the floor.

“You-a eating cup-a-cakes again?”

I put the last bit of my cake into my mouth. “Eaten,” I correct her around the mouthful of food.

“Ah! Is-a not your-a job why-a you single! Is-a your manners!” She proceeds to lecture me for a minute about manners in smooth Italian. Something about how men don’t like women who have to pick crumbs outta their cleavage every time they eat a meal.

“Okay, Mamma. Let’s get you sitting down before everyone rushes in.” Dad clasps her shoulders and turns her before she starts on my lack of a relationship again.

Brody holds the door open for me and shrugs. “I don’t see anythin’ wrong with women pickin’ crumbs outta cleavages. View’s hella nice.”

I laugh. Yep, Brody wins that one. Not sure where Nonna got her idea from, because it is a seriously tricky business to remove crumbs from the girls without flaunting them.