Chapter 49
STEPHANIE
News crews started arriving just minutes after the police did. I should’ve been expecting it, but somehow, I hadn’t. If there was ever a time to respect a person and not make it into a drama for public consumption, wasn’t this it?
A man was missing, for fuck’s sake. A good man. A man who deserved the entire city out looking for him tirelessly, devastated by his loss.
The media who were reporting weren’t calling for people to go out and find him. They weren’t even asking for help from the public. I drifted past one coiffed woman who was reading facts about Jeremiah off a prompter, including who he had dated and his antics in the past.
When I heard her talking about some prank he and Tanner pulled in Times Square on a well-known socialite’s twenty-first birthday, I wanted to wrap my hands around her neck and strangle her. Why was she digging all this up? It wasn’t going to help us find him.
The police had busily set up traffic cone looking things when they arrived and cordoned off the area with that and some tape, but they didn’t seem too concerned about the media filming their every move so long as they didn’t push the boundaries.
“Miss Donavan, are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit down?” the officer who was trying to interview me asked. We were standing on the sidewalk. He was holding a notepad, his colleagues buzzing like bees around Jeremiah’s car.
I shook my head. The same answer I’d given the kind Officer Harrison at least four times since he started talking to me. “I’m fine. Sorry. I just can’t believe this is happening.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “We’re going to do everything in our power to find him.”
“Thank you.” I shifted on my feet, turning my back squarely to the reporters when I noticed a camera swing my way. “As I was saying, Jannie was Jeremiah’s secretary before me.”
“You mentioned you had reason to believe she was behind this. Why would you think that?” Alert gray eyes on mine, he watched me carefully as I formulated my answer.
Officer Harrison was one of the good guys, I could tell. I could also tell he didn’t entirely trust me. When they got to the scene, he was the first out of the car and went straight to Tiana who was waving her arms about her head to grab their attention.
She told him I was the one who called 9-1-1 and he marched over to me. He asked a few questions, then went off to survey the damage to Jeremiah’s car—after he told me to stay put.
Making notes and grabbing the arm of another officer who was taking pictures to point out a few things to him, it took Harrison only a few minutes before he was back with me.
His eyes were gray as steel and constantly seemed to be taking in everyone and everything around us, while never breaking eye contact with me. It was remarkable but stressful to have that kind of attention on me.
Did he think I could’ve had something to do with this?
He tugged his hand through his short blond hair and scowled at a reporter who was inching her way past a cone. She retreated immediately.
Taking a shaky breath, I started telling him all about Jannie. I was only getting to the part where she threatened me in her office when tires squealed to a halt at the perimeter the police set out.
Officer Harrison and I both turned, but before I saw who had arrived, I heard him. “Who’s in charge here?”
Jance’s voice boomed over everyone else’s, causing a hush to fall over the crowd, the reporters, and the police alike when they realized who’s presence they were now in. I could’ve sworn I saw even Officer Harrison swallowing before striding forward with his hand extended. “Mr. Williams, I’m officer Harrison. I’m in charge for now.”
“Officer?” Jance bit out, ignoring the man’s hand. “Where are the detectives? The people who will find my son?”
“They’re on their way, sir. There was—”
“I don’t give a damn what there was, just get them here,” he ordered like the entire NYPD was his to command. No one argued with him. “Someone tell me what happened here. And get me a goddamn coffee.”
I wasn’t sure who was supposed to get the coffee, but I was happy to fade into the background now that he was here. Several of the police officers exchanged long looks, then one fresh-faced one scurried away. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was the rookie among them and had been silently sent on a coffee run.
I idly wondered if that was part of his official duties. I didn’t think so, but people seemed to bend over backward when Jance was involved. He started a rapid-fire conversation with Officer Harrison while I backed up, planning to sit my ass down on the sidewalk and wait until someone needed me again. I couldn’t bring myself to go back upstairs and wait in my apartment like Tiana had done.
I needed to be down here. I needed to know as soon as they knew anything new. Watching them work at least gave me something to concentrate on other than the terror gnawing at my soul over what Jeremiah might be going through at this very minute.
She wouldn’t hurt him? Would she? A tremble ran through me when my eyes cut to his banged-up car. If Jannie was behind this, she somehow orchestrated an accident. That wasn’t the actions of someone who wouldn’t hurt Jeremiah.
A fresh wave of tears rose in my throat, about to spill from my eyes when I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. “How are you holding up, Steph?”
When I looked up, it was into the pale blue eyes of Neil Colman. His thick, black-rimmed glasses were slightly askew, and his usually immaculate hair was messy. I smiled up at one of my favorite people at Williams Inc., blinking away the tears. “I’m okay, I think. You?”