No Place Like Home

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Arianna Jackson (AJ)

“She never got on the flight and her possessions—luggage, laptop, notebooks, purse, identification, etc.—were left behind.”

Abe’s words cycled through my head in slow motion as I tried to make sense of the fact that my best friend’s car had been located at the airport.

True, she had been leaving town, or so I thought, but she had intended to drive to L.A. Not fly there.

Then again, she had also told me she was going to Los Angeles to work on a long-term project for Abe, which he’d just confirmed was false.

I couldn’t remember the last time Leah had lied to me and even when she had, it was over something stupid, like eating two cookies when she’d really eaten a dozen. Or pretending she liked my silver spandex when we were going through a 1980s reboot phase.

But packing her belongings for an extended research job with Abe and his brother, Elijah, at Stanton Investigations in Los Angeles?

So not Leah Campbell.

I could have shrugged it off had her vehicle not been abandoned.

With blood dripping from the trunk.

And no Leah in sight.

That was disturbing enough, but why was Ramirez involved?

Speaking of the devil.

Easing into the roundabout that fronted the home I’d inherited when my parents unexpectedly passed, a familiar truck had taken up some prime real estate. Also known as my parking spot. Nicoh and I had company awaiting us, but my guard dog was apparently on sabbatical as he leisurely chewed his paw, his massive frame spanning the backseat.

I sighed. I’d known I was going to have this chat eventually and guessed that it was better to have my former beau deliver the news about my best friend than a member of law enforcement who hadn’t frequented my doorstep.

Believe me, as of late, it would have been hard to drum one up. If the rumors had made their way around, other officers would have drawn straws and given a fist-pump to the universe when they lucked out on not having to perform that task.

Dark circles lined the underside of his eyes. His usual swagger was stiff and slow, as though the movement intensified the pain with each step. His hair was longer than I’d seen it, grazing the top of his ears and tickling the back of his neck. But road-worn or not, the hummingbirds flitting about in my stomach suggested he still knew how to show up on the scene.

Taking a deep breath, I not so gracefully stumbled out of my vehicle and strode toward the detective, who surveyed me with the intensity of a hawk; his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, tugging them down ever so slightly. I frowned. He’d lost weight, too.

He noticed me staring and started to speak, but I beat him to the punchline. Or rather, I shifted from his current state to Leah’s.

“Just lay it on me, Ramirez. How bad is it?”

“Bad,” he replied, his eyes never straying from mine.

I scowled, almost having forgotten his affinity for single-word responses.

“Are you sure you want to do this out here?” He nodded over my shoulder. I twisted my head, noting that one of the neighbors was peering at us from behind their splayed blinds. If they didn’t want us seeing them, they’d have to do a better job. Or maybe that was the point—they wanted us to know they were watching. Probably even had their itchy little fingers on speed-dial, ready to call the cops.

Little did they know, he had already arrived.

“Fine. Nicoh! Get your lazy butt out here.”

My well-trained canine ignored the passenger door I had opened for him and hopped on the driver’s seat before jumping out of the driver’s side door and ambling over to Ramirez’s outstretched hand.

“Traitor,” I mumbled as I slammed the doors before stomping toward the house.

The luggage would have to wait.

Everything would have to wait.

Until Ramirez answered my questions.

To my satisfaction.

I unlocked the door and hustled in to turn the alarm off. After a cursory glance around, I ushered Ramirez and Nicoh in before turning the air conditioning on to cycle out the air that had been bottled up since I left for L.A.

“So, I’m afraid to ask. If homicide is involved…where’s the body?”

“No body,” he replied, his gaze searching mine.

“Ramirez,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “I hate to remind you, but you sought me out. This is my house. And if I have to continue drawing every word from you like a cartoon bubble, I guarantee there will be. A body.” I added that last bit in case he wasn’t clear.

He was.

Shaking his head as he leaned back onto the arm of the couch, he absently scratched Nicoh’s ears.

“Fine. But what I’m about to tell you—”

I raised a hand. “I know. I know. Is classified. Top secret. For-your-eyes-only.” I added finger quotes for effect.

He waited me out, though his frown deepened. “You know this is a two-way street.”

“What? I don’t know squat.”

“I wasn’t talking about Leah,” he murmured.

“Excuse me?”

“AJ. If you’d shut up for two seconds, I’d tell you what I know.”

“Be. My. Guest,” I huffed.

“Got that out of your system?”

“Waiting.” I tapped my foot.

“Have you always been this frustrating?”

“You know what they say about absence,” I quipped.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “As I was saying, what I’m about to tell you stays between us.”

“And your department.”

He shook his head. “This info came straight from the bedhead’s mouth.”

I blinked. Ramirez was the only person I knew who could get away with referencing my best friend’s choice of hairstyle in that manner without losing his teeth and a few other necessary body parts.

He nodded. “Yup. Leah.”

I collapsed onto the chair opposite him.

“I thought that would shut you up. But I had no idea it would be so effective.”

“Ramirez,” I growled.

“I almost wish I didn’t have this information. And I don’t think I can withhold it for much longer.” He glanced at me before continuing. “I know what Leah was up to before she went missing.”

“Please elaborate.” I enunciated each syllable.

One-word answers would no longer suffice.

“Just don’t kill the messenger,” he replied, holding his hands up. “You won’t be happy with what I’m about to tell you.”

“If it helps us figure out what happened to her, then I’ll just have to suffer through it.”

Ramirez nodded, grinding his jaw for a moment. “I knew about her plan—even tried talking her out of it—but you know how Leah is.”

I nodded. “When was this?”

He looked away and my stomach dropped. “Shortly before she moved out of your house.”

“So she told you about that. I assume that she also told you she was heading to L.A. to work for the Stantons?”

“I know that’s what she told you.”

I squinted at him. “What do you mean?”

Ramirez blew out a long breath. “That’s the story she told you. Her rationale for moving out was fabricated, too. And while she felt awful about it—part of the reason she confessed to me—I couldn’t change her mind.”

“Story? Packing up, heading to L.A.—was a lie?” My voice ratcheted up to a level that made Nicoh howl from his perch in the corner.

“She wanted to protect you—keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe?” I realized I was starting to sound like a parrot and tried to keep my frustration at bay. It was time to unmask this charade. “Tell me about this plan of hers. And please, start from the beginning.”

Ramirez nodded, though the crease between his brows intensified as he laid things out. “Leah called me out of the blue a few weeks ago and asked if she could run something by me. I thought she wanted to talk about Jonah, or perhaps even try to rekindle their relationship. But when we met, she said she may have made the biggest mistake of her life—one she knew she would forever regret. She then told me how she’d lied to you.”

I looked away, feeling the color rising in my cheeks.

“As I mentioned, she thought it was the only way to keep you safe. If we kept you out of the loop, you wouldn’t be in harm’s way.”

My eyes returned to his. “But safe from what, Ramirez?”

“A journalist friend of hers went missing while doing some investigative work on a piece she’d been writing. Leah, being Leah, decided that since no one was taking the girl’s disappearance seriously, or as seriously as she thought they should, she’d track the girl’s movements herself. In order to do so, she had to get off the grid.”

“And?”

“I never heard from her again. And now she’s missing, too.”