“Not golf,” she teased and he smiled.
“Not golf.”
“Not even cooking or learning Japanese.”
“Not even. It needs to be...meatier, but I don’t know what it is.”
“But you’ll recognize it when you see it.”
“I hope so.” They toasted each other. Pierce was wondering whether Jacquie might be his new challenge, an idea that had that same resonance of truth, when the waiter returned again. It was a different waiter.
“There’s a call for you, sir,” this waiter said quietly.
Pierce removed his phone from his pocket and looked at it, knowing it hadn’t vibrated. It was still charged and it was on. There were no missed calls or messages. “I don’t think so,” he said politely.
“On the house phone, sir.” The waiter turned and indicated a room at the back of the restaurant. Pierce’s suspicions rose.
“Can’t you bring it to the table?”
“No, sir.” The waiter smiled. “The caller is most insistent.”
Jacquie looked between them and Pierce wondered what she was thinking. He had a bad feeling about this call and what would happen when he went into that room, but it was based purely on instinct.
Not entirely instinct. There had been that limo.
As he glanced up, the man stepped out of what had to be a private room. He was big and bulked up, wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. He gave Pierce a hard look that was all too familiar.
Of course, this would be the night that he chose not to carry a gun, in deference to Jacquie’s doubts. He wanted to swear but knew it wouldn’t change anything.
He had to take the call. He hoped it would be short and sweet.
“Most insistent, sir,” the waiter said.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone,” Pierce said easily and began to rise to his feet. He leaned closer to Jacquie and dropped his voice to a murmur as he kissed her cheek. “Too bad I didn’t have time to ask your advice.” Her gaze flicked to his, her confusion clear, but he pivoted and followed the waiter, bracing himself for trouble.
Someone was going to pay for this.
He had a pretty good idea who it would be.
Five
Pierce didn’t come back.
How long could his phone call take?
Jacquie sipped at her wine, making it last, but she still ended up sitting alone with an empty glass. The waiter removed Pierce’s untouched soup and brought their mains, setting each plate on the table with a flourish. There was no sign of Pierce.
And it was a different waiter.
No, it was the same waiter who had served them earlier, but not the same one who had told Pierce about the phone call.
Jacquie had a bad feeling then.
“Could you ask how long he’ll be?” she asked.
The waiter looked at her blankly. His gaze flicked to Pierce’s empty chair. “How would I do that, madam?”
“He took a call on the house phone. It was ages ago.”
The waiter looked across the restaurant to the maître d’, who was standing by the door where he had been when Jacquie and Pierce arrived. There was a phone on a small counter beside him, but the receiver was in place.
“No, they said he could take the call in that room.”
“That’s a private dining room, madam, which is not in use tonight. There is no phone there.”
“Maybe you could find the other waiter and ask him.”
The waiter again surveyed the restaurant. “There are only two waitresses working tonight, madam, along with myself and the maître d’.”
“Well, then, where did he go?”
The waiter cleared his throat. “If your companion has left the restaurant...”
That made no sense. Jacquie swept out of her seat and marched to the private room. She didn’t care whether people watched her. The room was empty, the large table graced with only a cloth. She went to the back and peeked into the kitchen, then opened the door that led to the washrooms. She knocked on the door to the men’s room and when no one answered, she pushed open the door to look. It was empty.
Where had Pierce gone?
Why had he vanished? It seemed like a childish move and an uncharacteristic one.
Had something happened to him?
She went back to her seat. She checked her phone but she had no missed messages. Well, there was a squealy text from Ashley, declaring how hot Pierce looked, but Jacquie didn’t reply to that.
She called the number Pierce had given her but was redirected immediately to his voice mail. Was he on the phone? Or trying to call her at the same time she was trying to call him? She left a short cheerful message, then put her phone on the table, fully expecting it to ring.
It didn’t.
The minutes passed and her bad feeling grew. She couldn’t sit at the restaurant all night but she didn’t know where to find Pierce if he didn’t answer his phone. First thing in the morning, she was going to look at his file at the club.
Not that it would matter by then. If he was fine, there wouldn’t be a second chance for the second chance. If he wasn’t fine...
Jacquie caught her breath. If she called the police, what would she tell them?
The waiter came to the table then and she realized there was a line of people waiting for tables.
“The bill is paid, madam,” he said. “Would you like to take your meal home? Perhaps the gentleman’s, as well?”
Jacquie agreed because that seemed to be the right answer. She found herself walking home moments later with a bag in her hand, mystified, disappointed and hurt. What had gone wrong? Was Pierce okay? How and when had he paid if he wasn’t?
She was near the end of the block when the penny dropped. Pierce’s last comment had been that he hadn’t had time to ask her advice.
He’d said earlier that he was going to ask her how to manage people
