Free Beautiful Storm (Lightning Strikes Book 1) by Barbara Freethy Page B

front door, so there was no video of when she arrived or when she got out of the car."
    "That is unfortunate," Alicia murmured, her gaze sweeping the lot. "What kind of car did she drive?"
    "That night she was in her brother Rico's car, a flashy red Mazda Miata convertible. When the police arrived, the doors were locked. There was nothing belonging to Liliana inside the vehicle. It's believed that she had her purse and her phone with her when she disappeared."
    "Did you see the car when you drove into the lot?"
    "If I did, it didn't register. I was running late, so I was in a hurry to get through the front door. When I entered the restaurant, there was a line at the desk, so I went into the bar and made my way through the dining room, thinking she'd already gotten a table, but I didn't see her. I went back to the reception area and waited there. I couldn't believe she was later than me. I was going to text her, but when I pulled out my phone, I had some texts from the foreman on my job. I spent a few minutes answering his questions before I sent off a text to Liliana." He let out an angry breath. "I wasted a lot of time."
    "What happened next?"
    "When I didn't get an answer from Liliana, I went into the kitchen. It occurred to me that Liliana might be talking to her brother Juan. But she wasn't in the kitchen. Juan said he hadn't seen her. In fact, he hadn't been aware she was going to meet me that night. He thought she was spending all her time with her sister, getting ready for the wedding. I think that's when I first got worried." His stomach twisted with the painful memories.
    "What did you do after that?"
    "I texted Liliana again. Juan called Rico, who said he'd lent Liliana his car. He'd last seen her around six when one of his friends had picked him up to go to dinner. Liliana's mother said she'd last seen Liliana at seven. She'd mentioned she was going to run an errand before she met me. No one has been able to figure out if she actually ran that errand or what it might have involved."
    "Okay. So Liliana drove here, parked over there, got out of her car and—"
    "Vanished. We called the police around nine o'clock. Actually, we called Diego. He was on duty that night. He and his partner came by to find out what was going on. We searched the alley between the restaurant and the office building and went around the back area that leads to another alley. But we found nothing. Because there was no evidence of foul play, there wasn't a full-press search immediately launched. Diego was on patrol, so he looked around the neighborhood and the family started calling Liliana's friends."
    "When did the police start to look for her in earnest?"
    "Not until the next day. It bothers me that it took so long. Those first few hours were crucial. The family was looking for her, but if we'd had more manpower, maybe we would have found her."
    "Or not," Alicia said gently. "It doesn't sound like you had anything to go on."
    "But if I hadn't been late—"
    "Stop. I know you've been on a guilt trip since that night, but you have to stop going around and around."
    "That's easy to say, but—"
    "But what? You were twenty minutes late. That happens. Liliana parked in a crowded, lighted lot in front of the restaurant where her brother worked. This isn't a dangerous neighborhood, and it wasn't late at night. No one could have anticipated that she'd run into trouble here. She obviously didn't. She got out of the car and locked it behind her."
    "And then someone grabbed her."
    Alicia stared back at him. "It is weird that no one saw anything, because it would have been a popular time for people to be going in and out of the restaurant."
    "I know. It doesn't make sense. She wouldn't have gotten in the car with a stranger without a struggle. She was the kind of woman who would fight for her life."
    "Maybe she knew the person who approached her. She didn't fight because she wasn't afraid."
    "Which is how I came to be the main person of interest," he