Free Thyme to Live: A We Sisters Three Mystery by Melissa F Miller Page B

call placed just before Helena and Lynn met at the nail salon. Probably a call to let her friend know she was on her way.
    The call before that was to a New York number that neither of us could place. He jotted it in his notebook and made a notation of the time and length.
    That was it for Friday. Three outgoing calls, one to her girlfriend. Not much to go on. I scrolled further.
    Thursday night she’d called Victor’s number. He said they’d confirmed their brunch plans. There were no other Thursday calls on her log. I wasn’t particularly surprised. I spoke on the phone with my sisters pretty regularly, but I mainly texted everyone else unless I had a specific reason to call instead. I was about to share this thought with Victor, when the woman with the braids suddenly pushed back her chair and rose to her feet.
    My entire body tensed, expecting her to shout for Gabriel, who would then emerge from the stacks. He’d crash into us, grab the phone, and take off—maybe leaving his henchmen behind to rough us up. The woman raised her arms over her head, and I opened my mouth to shout a warning, but she rolled her neck from side to side, then cracked her back. Her stretch completed, she returned to her seat and picked up where she’d left off reading.
    I exhaled in relief. Victor gave me a concerned look.
    “Sorry. I’m just a little on edge, I guess,” I whispered.
    “I noticed.” He smiled and placed his hand on the middle of my back in a gesture I’m sure was intended to soothe me. But his skin was warm, even through my tee shirt I could feel his hand heating my back. The gentle pressure of his touch was distracting.
    I wriggled a bit and he pulled his hand back.
    “I’m okay. Let’s stay focused.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “Does your sister text?”
    He nodded. “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. She’ll probably have more text messages than calls, but let’s just check out the incoming calls first. We know whoever spooked her called Friday evening and left her a voicemail.”
    I pulled up her incoming log. We skimmed dozens of missed calls from the past four days—several from the nannying service, one placed Monday morning that I recognized as coming from Cate’s assistant’s number, and then call after call from Victor, trying to track her down after she didn’t show up for brunch on Sunday. I scrolled further. She had six missed calls on Saturday, all from the same number.
    I glanced up at him. I didn’t even need to ask the question. I could tell from the furrow creasing his forehead that he didn’t recognize the number. Without realizing what I was doing, I reached out and smoothed my fingertips over the worry lines.
    He blinked and I pulled my hand back. “Sorry.”
    He shook his head and fixed me with a look I couldn’t quite read. “Don’t be.”
    We stared at each for a long moment. The silence stretched from normal to socially acceptable to downright weird. I cleared my throat and turned my attention back to the call log.
    “Your skin’s soft.” He said it in a low whisper, almost as if he didn’t want me to hear him. So I pretended not to.
    I gnawed on my lower lip and pointed at the screen. “Look at this.” The same number that had called six times on Saturday also placed multiple calls to Helena’s number on Friday evening and well into the night. I tallied them softly. “Eight missed calls. Plus six the next day. Someone tried to get a hold of her fourteen times in two days and then just ... stopped? That’s crazy.”
    “It’s only crazy if the caller didn’t eventually get in touch with her,” he said.
    Good point.
    “Do you know the area code?” I asked.
    “No, but this one moves to the top of the list for my friend at the mobile company.”
    “Or we could, you know, Google it. Or just call the number.”
    He stared at me as if I’d sprouted a second head. “Call it?”
    “It’s just an idea,” I said defensively.
    “It’s a great one. Let’s finish this