The Collected

CHAPTER 5

Los Angeles, California

As soon as the tone bonged and the seat belt light went out, Liz Oliver stood up and retrieved her bag from the overhead compartment.

For the first time in her life, she had flown business class. That had been Nate’s doing. She had told him it was an unnecessary expense, but after the nearly twelve-hour flight from Paris to Los Angeles, she was glad he’d paid the money. Usually when she arrived back in the States, she’d be totally worthless for a couple days. But here it was, just after one p.m. in California, and she felt fresh and awake and ready to go.

Another perk of business class was that she was one of the first ones off, and able to beat the crowd to passport control. Once her booklet was stamped, and the officer said, “Welcome home,” she headed straight for the nothing-to-declare exit, her carry-on the only bag she’d brought.

A ramp led out of Customs to an area where dozens of people were jammed off to the left side, craning their necks every time someone new came out like fans watching movie stars walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Liz knew Nate wouldn’t be sandwiched among them, though. He’d told her specifically to continue on through the door to the outside, opposite the ramp, and he’d be right there.

Knowing she was going to see him in a matter of seconds sent a spike of anticipation up her spine as she weaved through the crowd and walked out the door. To say she was excited to see him would have been an understatement. It had been nearly a month and a half since he was able to visit her in Paris, and it had started to seem like forever. She’d had her share of boyfriends before, but it had never been like this. Despite the fact they had met each other under false pretense, she felt an intense connection to Nate, and it was obvious he felt it with her, too.

A few feet beyond the door, she paused. While there were several people around, Nate wasn’t one of them. Maybe he was at the sidewalk, or waiting at the curb with his car. She headed over. Nate wasn’t there either, and neither was his car.

She checked her watch. One fifteen. Her flight was a bit early, but Nate would have surely been tracking her flight online, and would have left home in plenty of time to meet her. He was thorough that way.

Parking. That had to be it. LAX was a crazy, congested airport. No doubt he was having a hard time finding a space.

She moved out of the flow of foot traffic, and kept her gaze fixed on the crosswalk that led from the parking structure. When five minutes passed without him joining her, she brushed it off as nothing. When fifteen more went by, her brows began to slide together, and a frown appeared on her face.

She pulled out her phone. No missed calls. No texts. She dialed his number but was sent instantly to voice mail. Instead of leaving a message, she decided to check inside the terminal again in case they’d mixed up where they were supposed to meet. There was no sign of him.

She called him again. This time when the beep sounded, she said, “Hey, it’s me. Where are you? I’m at the airport. Just waiting. Kinda boring here. So, um, yeah, where are you?”

Liz gave it another hour, then decided Nate had either forgotten today was the day she was coming, or something had delayed him. She didn’t want to put too much thought into that last possibility, as, given the nature of Nate’s work, it would inevitably have taken her to scenarios she didn’t want to consider.

She called him again, and left another message, the fourth. This time she told him she was going to catch a cab and she’d see him at the house.

Fifty minutes later, a taxi dropped her off in front of the gate to the Hollywood Hills home owned by her brother Jake and lived in by Nate.

Quinn, she corrected herself. He goes by Quinn, not Jake. She was still having a problem with that. Her childhood was full of wonderful memories of Jake. Until he left, at which point anger and confusion and resentment set in after he basically disappeared from the face of the earth, only to show up again when she was an adult.

Those abandoned years had been painful, a wound that never seemed able to close completely. Intellectually, she now understood why he’d done what he did, not that she would have made the same choices. But he’d played his hand as best he could, and it was what it was. She got that. She even knew now how much he’d always cared about her, but she was still having a hell of time separating the past from the present.

One thing she couldn’t ignore, though, was that if he hadn’t come back into her life, she would have never met Nate.

She walked over to the pedestrian door in the wall that surrounded her brother’s property, and pressed the intercom buzzer.

No response.

She pressed again, and received the same non-answer.

There was a numbered security pad next to the buzzer. She punched in the code Nate had created for her, waited for the click, and entered.

A driveway took up most of the area in front of the house. There were no cars present, and the door to the garage was shut.

Though the house was two stories high, the level she was standing in front of was the top, while the lower level, the one where the bedrooms and the gym were located, followed the slope of the hill down.

There was no doorbell button next to the entrance. If anyone made it that far, it would be only because someone inside had buzzed them through the front gate. There was, however, another security keypad hidden behind a moveable flap of siding directly below the porch light.

Though Nate had shown it to her and given her a code-different from the one for the gate-she had never used it before. She hunted around for several seconds before she found the right spot, then closed her eyes and tried to remember exactly how he’d said the panel opened.

In, to the left, and up, she thought.

She did as she remembered and was pleased when the lower edge of the flap popped out. Moving it all the way up, she exposed the panel. The new code was one she wasn’t likely to forget-the room numbers of the first two hotels they’d stayed in together, starting with the hotel in Paris where everything between them had begun.

Twenty seconds later she was standing inside.

“Nate?” she called out.

The silence was total, and she knew she was alone.

Just to be sure, though, she left her bag in the foyer, checked the top floor, and headed down the stairs to the lower level.

“Nate?” she said again.

The bedrooms and the room that served as the gym were all empty. She entered Nate’s room. Everything was neat and in its place.

Too neat.

Liz felt fingers slowly squeezing her heart. She walked over to his en suite bathroom. Counters clean and empty, sink and shower bone dry. She grabbed the shower towel and ran a hand up and down it. No moisture at all.

He’s not here. He hasn’t been here for at least a day or more.

She could no longer ignore the possibility she’d avoided earlier. She knew, despite his assurances to the contrary, that his job often put him in danger. It still might not be that, but…

Please, let him be all right.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, worried, unfocused eyes locked on worried, unfocused eyes.

She pulled out her phone.