Tell Me a Lie (The Story Series Book 3) (5 page)

M
y bladder was
on the verge of exploding, and I woke from a dead sleep. I flung myself off the bed and into the bathroom, groaning as I relieved myself. It seemed like the more pregnant I became, the less my bladder could hold.

I padded back to the bed in the dark and patted the sheets for my phone. Finding it, I flicked it on. It was midnight, and I’d been asleep for nearly six hours.

So it was one in the morning in São Paulo. I checked my texts. Weird. Caleb hadn’t messaged me. I frowned at the glowing device in my hand.

It wasn’t like him to not text me. Or call. Or both.

Hello sweetie! I woke up after sleeping for six hours. I’m going back to bed but text me to let me know you’re back in the hotel and safe, okay?

I waited a few minutes, staring at the screen. Caleb always returned my texts immediately. He’d texted when he was dining with the governor, when he was in business meetings in D.C., when he once went to China and the time difference was a half-day. If he couldn’t talk, he’d reply with something quick.
Call later. ILY
, he’d write. The
ILY
was his shorthand for I love you, and it meant he was super busy.

Now, nothing.

I dialed his number, and it went straight to voicemail. His mailbox was full, and I couldn’t leave a message. What the hell? I sent him a short email.

My heart started to thump faster. Where was he? I knew the party had probably lasted late; it was Brazil, after all. But this late? Surely there’d be lots of drinking and celebrating. Maybe they’d all gone to a restaurant or bar afterward?

I dialed again and got the voicemail. Then I texted a second time.

Caleb, I’m worried about you. I keep getting your voicemail and it’s full. Please call me. Or text. Please? I love you.

I checked my email. Nothing. Facebook. Nothing. I looked at Caleb’s Facebook page, and he’d posted some photos of the party at around six my time—they were mostly the same photos he’d sent me. He also posted a photo of him with the architectural team, and I swiped and pinched and expanded the picture. Although he was smiling, Caleb looked exhausted, with deep circles under his eyes. Travel didn’t usually tire him, and the time difference between Florida and Brazil was only one hour, so jetlag wasn’t an issue.

Was he sick? He hadn’t been feeling well. Was that why he wasn’t answering his phone or texts?

I scrolled through the comments and didn’t see any from him.

There had to be another way to contact him. The hotel! He’d sent me his hotel name and room number. I read back through hundreds of our messages and found the information, then dialed. The hotel operator answered in Portuguese.

“Good evening, I’d like room 4000 please. The presidential suite.”

The operator responded in English. “One moment, ma’am.”

The phone rang and rang, and then the operator’s heavily accented voice came on the line. “No one is answering. I’m sorry.”

I hung up and my stomach dropped as my phone’s screen faded to black, leaving me in the darkness. Where could he be? I had a bad feeling about Caleb’s silence. Immediately my paranoid mind defaulted to the obvious explanation: he was with a woman. A final fling before he was tied down with a wife and a baby. Of course my mind went to that scenario, because before Caleb, I hadn’t been with many faithful guys.

No, it wasn’t possible, I told myself. Caleb was the most trustworthy man I’d met. He loved me. He wasn’t like the men I’d dated before him. He’d even had the chance to cheat on his first wife, who he hadn’t truly loved, and yet he didn’t.

So where was he?

A darker thought came to mind. What if he was hurt? What if something happened to him? Did they have kidnappings in Brazil? Terrorist attacks? I flicked to my favorite news app and scanned the world news. Iraq…Beirut…Indonesia. There were no stories out of Brazil.

Chewing on a thumbnail, I took another pass through all of my social media accounts to see if anything new had been posted. It hadn’t, and I leaned over to the nightstand and flicked on a lamp. I shivered and covered myself with a sheet, and then I dialed Colin. I figured they would have been in touch about the business.

“Hello,” he mumbled.

“Colin. Have you heard from Caleb? I haven’t heard from him in six hours and I tried texting and calling him and checked his Facebook and—”

“Whoa. Whoa. Emma. Stop. Calm down. What?”

I heard the murmur of a female voice. Of course. I rolled my eyes and spoke slowly into the phone, like I was talking to a three-year-old. “I. Have. Not. Heard. From. Caleb. In. Hours.” I paused, then released an explosion of swear words. “And I’m really fucking worried.”

“Hmm. Okay. Okay. Let me check my messages. One second. Gina, can you move your leg please? Emma, I’m going to put you on speakerphone.”

The other end of the phone crackled with the sound of movement. I sighed audibly. “Hey, Gina.”

Gina giggled. “Hey, Em.”

Caleb cleared his throat. “Looks like last I heard from him at five-thirty when he sent me pictures of the view from the rooftop terrace.”

I groaned. “I got the same photos. No emails? No Facebook messages?”

“Let me check…email…no. Facebook…no.”

“Okay. So what are we going to do?” I was trying not to implode with anxiety.

“We? We’re not going to do anything, Emma. It’s midnight here, one in the morning there, and I’m going to assume his phone died. Maybe he lost his charger. Maybe he lost his phone. Maybe he’s…tied up.”

“But wouldn’t he use another phone or computer to get in touch with me? I’m his wife and I’m pregnant.” I started to sniffle, thinking of the way Colin’s voice dipped when he said
tied up.

“Jesus, Colin,” I heard Gina say softly. “She’s worried.”

“Okay, okay,” he said hastily. “You’re right. It is a little weird, since he does text you constantly. Let me think. How about I call some of our team down there to find out more? Would it make you feel better?”

“Y-yeah,” I stammered.

“Okay. I’ll call you back. Just hang tight.”

“‘Kay.”

We hung up. Pressing a hand to my lower back, I rose slowly and put on some pajamas. Taking my phone with me to the kitchen, I tried to distract my racing thoughts by making some fresh orange juice. I squeezed ten honeybells in the expensive electric juicer Caleb had bought me and gulped the sugary drink down. Almost immediately, the baby started to kick.

“You like that, don’t you,” I whispered, rubbing my stomach.

My phone on the counter buzzed, and I dove for it.

“Colin?” I yelped.

“Okay, I have some answers…sort of. I’m going to come over so we can chat.”

My gut churned. “What do you mean?” I spat out. “What’s going on? Tell me now!”

Colin’s voice reached a warmer and lower tone than I’d ever heard it register. “Emma, I want you to calm down please. For the baby, you need to stay relaxed. I’ll be over in fifteen minutes. Sit and breathe, and when I get there, we’ll talk.”

Trying not to cry or think about the possible scenarios, I sat on the sofa and dragged my cat, Higgins, into my lap. His loud purring did nothing to calm my anxiety. I ran through every scenario and settled on one: Caleb had a horrible case of food poisoning and was in a hospital. That’s why Colin was coming over to break the news.

I stroked Higgins’ grey fur and mentally braced myself. Food poisoning could leave a person weak. Caleb had said he wasn’t feeling well. We could handle this. We needed to call the embassy, arrange for a medical transport to Florida. Miami, perhaps, because it had great hospitals. Everything would eventually work out.

My phone buzzed. “Yes,” I said.

It was the concierge in the lobby. Because I’d insisted family members couldn’t just show up unannounced and ride the elevator into our home, the concierge now called with every visitor.

“Colin King is here to see you,” he said.

“Send him up.”

I heard the faint ding of the elevator and was shocked to see Laura and Sarah standing behind Colin. A bolt of fear shot through me, and I put both hands on my stomach, as if to protect my unborn child.

“What?” My voice was soft. Then it grew louder as I repeated the word.

This, I realized, must be serious. I looked to Colin, then Laura, then Sarah. Each had a wide-eyed, frozen expression as they moved toward me.

S
arah was
the first to reach the sofa and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, practically tackling me. “It’s going to be okay,” she said in a strong voice.

“What is going on? What’s happened? Is Caleb hurt?” I whispered, wriggling out of her grip and jumping up.

“Sit.” Colin’s voice was stern. “Now.”

I did, perching myself on the edge of the sofa. Laura and Sarah stayed close, their thighs touching mine, their hands on my arms. As if they were going to restrain me when I received the bad news.

Colin paced and ran his hands through his black hair as he talked. “Here’s what we know. At about nine Brazil time, Caleb and the team left the party and went to the hotel, which is on the next block. They all decided to go to the bar—it was Caleb, the two King VPs from Brazil, and our manager in Miami—and there, they had a drink. They were about to order a second round when Caleb said he had a headache and left to go up to his room.”

I inhaled a giant, choppy breath and nodded. “Earlier, he told me he wasn’t feeling well. And then?”

Colin squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We don’t know. They watched him walk out of the bar and didn’t think anything of it. I asked Jose from Miami to knock on Caleb’s room. There was no answer. We’re now getting the hotel manager to open the room.”

I gulped many huge breaths.

“Let’s not worry yet,” Laura said. “Maybe he took a sleeping pill or something and is in a really deep sleep.”

I nodded and chewed my cheek.

“You’ve got to stay calm for the baby,” Sarah said gently, putting her arm around me and pulling me close. I nodded into her shoulder and stayed like that until I heard the buzz of Colin’s phone.

“Yes?” he said, walking quickly into Caleb’s office.

I sat up ramrod-straight, staring at the closed door. Why wouldn’t he take the call in front of me?

Within minutes, Colin walked out, repeatedly running his hand through his hair. A signal he was nervous.

“He’s not in the room.”

“Oh my God,” I whimpered. “Where is he?”

“Our team is getting the police involved. I’m going to call our parents. Laura?” Colin beckoned for his sister, and she followed him into the office. They shut the door. Sarah turned to me.

“Let’s not worry. Caleb is a really smart man who has traveled all over the world. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for all of this,” Sarah said firmly.

I nodded. “You’re right. You’re the most logical person I know. I won’t panic until you do.”

“That’s right. You don’t panic until I do, okay? You relax, because of the baby. The baby’s top priority. I’m going to make us all some tea now. Come in the kitchen with me.”

Grateful for her direction, I followed her and watched as she filled a kettle and took out four mugs. I babbled, telling Sarah everything I’d told Colin. How Caleb had texted me earlier, what he’d said, and showing her the photos he’d sent.

“People don’t disappear, Emma. He’s somewhere. Has to be.”

Just as she was pouring boiling water over a tea infuser filled with chamomile, Colin and Laura emerged from the office. Laura’s eyes were rimmed with pink, and a fresh jolt of fear surged through me.

“What?” I asked, panicked.

“Our parents are leaving Sanibel and going to Miami tonight,” Colin explained. “They’ll be ready to board a flight to São Paulo in the morning, if he’s not found by then. In the meantime, our team is meeting with police. The detectives are supposed to call us sometime in the next few hours.”

Walking zombie-like back to the sofa with my tea, I tried hard to erase my mind of all thoughts. Because if I allowed my brain to free-flow, a thousand different horrible scenarios would stream through.

I started to bawl.

Colin walked over to me and knelt on the floor, taking my hands in his. “Emma, why don’t you go lie down for a while, and I’ll come and get you when the detective calls? How about it?”

Sarah took the tea mug out of my hands and put it on the coffee table. “That’s a good idea. I’ll keep you company.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Come on.”

Sniffling, I allowed her to take me into the bedroom, and I eased onto the mattress so I stared at the ceiling. I flopped onto my side and stared into Sarah’s brown eyes. She massaged my arm.

“We’re not going to panic yet,” she whispered.

I repeated her words, but I didn’t believe her.

“I’m going to turn out the light. I don’t expect you to sleep but let’s try to settle down, okay? Let’s try to think good thoughts.”

“Okay,” I mumbled.

She turned out the light, and a fresh well of tears sprang up. “Sarah? I think it’s my fault.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Sarah shifted so her head was propped up on her hand.

I was blubbering and shuddering, barely able to inhale. “When we were in Canada, I told him a fable about the aurora borealis and how the spirits would come down and take him if he whistled. And he whistled…” I trailed off, realizing I was making no sense at all. A lump of fear had gripped my chest, and I heaved a sob into the pillow.

Sarah wrapped her arm around the non-pregnant sliver of my midsection and pulled me close. “Shhh. That’s not it. Don’t be silly. You know it’s not possible. I’m sure there’s a reason for all of this. Not because you told him a myth. Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”

She must have held me for an hour or more as my mind raced with various scenarios, none of them good. I wasn’t sure of the time, but I sat up, startled, when someone opened the door.

“The detectives are on the phone,” Laura said in a small voice.

I rose as fast as I could, grabbing my phone along the way, and joined Colin in the office. Laura and Sarah stayed behind in the living room, talking in hushed tones.

“Shut the door,” Colin said. I did, then walked to the desk and sat across from him.

“Emma, this is Detective Santos. He speaks English. Detective, this is Emma King, Caleb’s wife. She’s quite upset.”

“Of course,” the detective said. “We’d like to know the last time you spoke with your husband, texted him, heard from him. Please tell us what you know.”

Patiently, I listed every interaction Caleb and I had the previous day. We’d talked on the phone twice and sent dozens of messages back and forth. He’d said he wasn’t feeling well. Then after six in the evening, nothing.

“This isn’t like Caleb,” I insisted.

“Have you received any ransom messages, emails, calls?”

Just the question made my gut churn. “Caleb…kidnapped?” I said softly. “No. I haven’t received any messages.”

“Do you know if he had security of any sort?”

“I…I don’t think so. He was going from his hotel to the building, which is practically next door. He showed me a map on his computer. And he said he was always going to be with his team.”

The detective listened to me ramble for several minutes, then sighed. “Mrs. King, I understand you’re extremely upset. How can I say this delicately? Your husband is in Brazil. Some men do things here they might not do at home. Do you know what I mean?”

“N-no,” I stammered. “Well, yes, I do. I guess. But Caleb wouldn’t do those things.”

“He wouldn’t,” Colin interjected. “Caleb’s incredibly straight-laced. He and Emma got married in November, and he’s crazy about her.”

“Of course. That may be,” the detective said hurriedly. “But as far as we’re concerned, he hasn’t been missing for twenty-four hours. We can’t open a case until then. And maybe he’s doing something that he, uh, shouldn’t be. Maybe he went to a club to listen to music or see some dancers. Have you considered that?”

The detective kept listing all of the possible places Caleb could have gone, and I shook my head. “No. No. NO!” I shrieked. “He wouldn’t go off by himself like that.”

The phone went silent for a moment, and Colin and I locked eyes. I leaned forward in my chair, waving my hands in the air, imploring Colin to do something.

“Maybe he’s not alone,” the detective said softly, breaking the awful silence.

I flopped back in the chair and sobbed. Was that why Caleb hadn’t picked up my call the other morning? Had he been with someone in his hotel room? I started to tremble and Colin looked panicked.

“Let’s plan to do this,” the detective continued. “When is he supposed to fly home?”

“Tomorrow night at nine,” I mumbled through tears.

“Okay, so he’s supposed to leave Friday night at nine. If Mr. King doesn’t show up and doesn’t get on the plane, we’ll open a case.”

Colin said something and the detective responded, but I could barely hear over the loud whoosh in my ears. A mix of anger and helplessness surged, and by the time Colin hung up, I was shaking uncontrollably. I stood, not exactly knowing where I’d go.

“Emma. Emma.” Colin rushed around the desk and gripped my shoulders. His fingers dug into my flesh, and I wondered why he was holding me so tight. “We’re going to send my mom and dad tomorrow, and we’ll get a private investigator on the case right away. Okay? But I need you to relax for the baby.”

“This can’t be real. It has to be a lie, right? All of this? I don’t think I can calm down. I’m scared.”

“I know. I know you’re scared. But you need to try, okay? The baby needs you. We all need you and the baby to be healthy.”

“Caleb needs me,” I whispered, tears spilling from my eyes.

I looked up at Colin, and he was chewing on his bottom lip. Why were his eyes so wide and scared-looking?

By now I wasn’t just shaking—I was full-body shivering. Like I did the nights on the porch with Caleb in Canada during our honeymoon just two short months ago. Only I was deliriously happy back then, because Caleb had wrapped me in a puffy blanket, then circled his arms around me.

“I’m here to keep you warm,” he’d said.

Now that trip seemed like something from another lifetime. Standing in my home in Florida, I was frozen inside and out. Caleb was missing. And the shaking wouldn’t stop.

“Em, I think we should call your doctor,” Colin said quietly.