Free To Keep a Secret by Brenda Chapman

CHAPTER ONE
    S torm Investigations’ newest recruit, Nick Roma, texted me just as I was sitting down to supper. A meal that included my dad’s fall-off-the-bone spareribs and mashed potatoes. I glanced at the message on my cellphone: Call me at the office when you get this. Urgent. I set my beer bottle on the table, sighed deeply, and stood up.
    “Looks like I have to make a phone call,” I said. “Work related.”
    Dad said through a mouthful of meat, “Thought you had the day off.”
    “So did I.”
    Evan looked up from his plate. Barbecue sauce dripped down his chin. “Are we still going to watch the movie after dinner, Aunt Anna?” He was wearing that hopeful puppy-dog look. His mom, who was my sister Cheri, and his dad, Jimmy, had been working long hours lately, including now. When not in his Grade One class, six-year-old Evan was spending a lot of time in after-school programs or with a sitter. He reminded me of a little houseplant thirsting for attention.
    I reached down and ruffled his hair. “I don’t see why not. I just need to let our new office manager know that he should be phoning Jada. She’s on call today. Not me. Otherwise, it can wait until tomorrow.”
    “You tell him,” Dad said, waving a rib in the air.
    I speed-dialled the office as I crossed the kitchen floor and stepped into the hall. Nick must have been waiting with his hand hovering above the phone.
    “Anna, sorry to bother you, but . . .”
    I cut him off. I didn’t try to hide my irritation. “Jada’s the one you should have contacted. I’m on a well-deserved day off, if you recall.”
    I pictured our new hire. Nick Roma was twenty-eight, tall, and good-looking. He had straight black hair that he wore shaggy and on the long side. His soulful eyes reminded me of black velvet. He had too much going on to be working for minimum wage in a start-up PI business. But I’d yet to get his full story out of Jada. Nick had managed to sidestep my personal questions like a boxer dodging opening jabs.
    Everything about him made me grumpy—from his handsome face to the patient way he looked at me. I just couldn’t get a read on what was going on in his head. He reminded me of my brother-in-law Jimmy Wilson and every man I’d ever dated who believed women owed them just for looking good. Well, I was older and wiser now and not so trusting. I could feel in my bones that Nick Roma was up to something. I just didn’t know what . . . yet.
    “Jada’s the reason I’m phoning you.” Nick paused as if waiting to see if I was going to cut him off again. When I didn’t, he said, “Jada got a text message around ten thirty. She told me that she had to leave for a minute but would be back for a one o’clock meeting. She never showed up.”
    Odd but not earth-shattering. “Did she call in?”
    “No.”
    “Do you have any idea where she went?”
    “No. I’ve tried calling her all afternoon. But her phone’s been off.”
    Jada never turned her phone off.
    I tapped my fingers against my forehead while I thought. Had she told me about a new client? I didn’t remember, if so. I realized that I knew nothing about her life outside the office. I hadn’t wanted to get too attached to my business partner. I planned on leaving Ottawa in the spring and returning to my life on the road in the US. Maybe I should have made more of an effort.
    “Do you have her address handy?”
    “Right here. She lives downtown near the bus station.” I couldn’t fault Nick’s research skills. He was proving to be always one step ahead.
    I jotted down the address. Jada lived in a rough section of town. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’ll swing by after supper,” I said.
    A supper that I wasn’t going to enjoy, now that worry was sitting like a big cabbage in my stomach. And especially now that I had to tell Evan that I wouldn’t be around to watch a movie.
    • • • • • • • • • •
    It was close to