“If I tell you,” Casey said, her big, round blue eyes lifting to meet his, “promise you won’t kill me?”

Jon bumped his shoulder against hers. “I promise not to kill you, unless you deleted my games from the DVR. Then all bets are off.”

He didn’t get the reaction out of her he was looking for. Casey dropped her head and hunched her shoulders again. Sucking in a deep breath, she lifted her hand from her lap and held it out to him.

Glancing down at it, Jon realized that it wasn’t her hand she was offering him, but what was in it. He took the small box from her outstretched palm. “What’s this? You got me a present?”

Casey shook her head and her voice trembled as she said, “A woman stopped by while you were gone.”

Dawning washed over him and Jon nodded. “Yeah, that was probably Patricia, the woman I told you about. ‘The One.’” He grinned, his eyes glued to the box now resting on his thigh. “She called to tell me she was here. Why didn’t you let her in?”

Casey met his questioning gaze and looked positively shameful. “She was here. I did ask her to come in, but, Jon…” Her voice drifted off and Jon froze, his eyes fixed on her as dread began to seep into his veins. “I think she got the wrong impression.”

“How did she get the wrong impression?” he asked, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper. He looked down at the box again, and his hands trembled as he touched the lid. What was inside?

Casey pressed her fingers to her lips and tears shed down her pale cheeks. “I was in the shower—”

“Oh Jesus.” Jon jumped off the bed and began pacing the room. Behind him, Casey spouted frantic words at him. He captured bits and pieces. She answered the door in a towel. She didn’t know who she was. Something about the box. Then she’d left, looking really upset.

“Ya think, Casey?” he shouted, throwing his hands in the air as he rounded on her. “She comes to my house and a woman she’s never met answers my door in a fucking towel, and you think she might have been upset?”

Jon stormed from the room. Casey continued sobbing and apologizing to his retreating form, but he didn’t give a damn about her apologies or hurt feelings at the moment. All Jon knew was that his woman had come for him and now she was gone. He grabbed his keys and his phone on the way out the door.

“I’ve tried calling her, but her phone is turned off. Please, Jules, if you know where she is, tell me.” Jon pleaded with Patricia’s best friend, desperate to find her. He’d already called her phone a hundred times over. The fact that they hadn’t been together long was finally setting in, as was the knowledge that he really didn’t know anything about her.

He knew her father was dead, but he’d never met her mother. He knew of her friends, had met them briefly, but he didn’t know where to find them or how to get a hold of any of them. Then he’d had an epiphany. He knew Tate, he knew Felix, and both men had women who were in tight with Patricia and her group. They were her friends.

Since he and Tate had been friends since childhood, and since they had recently reconnected after a falling out, he contacted him first, and it had paid off. Tate didn’t know where to look for Patricia, but his wife did.

She gave him the number for her friend, Jules, who he remembered as the woman he’d met at their baby shower. He called her immediately, but she was proving difficult.

“Well, Jon,” she said smartly, “if her phone is off, then I’m guessing she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I get that,” Jon responded, being as calm as he could manage when he was hanging over the edge of the proverbial cliff by his fingernails. “But it’s a misunderstanding. I need to talk to her so we can clear it up. Just tell me where she is.”

“I can’t. It seems my psychic abilities are on the fritz today.”

Jon gritted his teeth. “Can you just take a guess, please? I’m begging here. I need to talk to her.”

“Mmm, I like a man who knows how to beg,” she purred, but her mood changed in the next instant, like the snap of a whip. “Look, Jon, I feel for your situation, I really do, but I can’t just hand out my friend’s personal information to a stranger. Especially when it’s a stranger who she’s trying to avoid, apparently. You’re going to have to come up with something better. Persuade me. Why should I tell you anything?”

Jon pushed his fingers through his hair as he scoured his brain for something to tell her that might sway her. He was sitting in his truck, parked in the middle of a doctor’s office parking lot where he’d stopped to think after driving around the city for over an hour searching for Patricia. He’d gone to her house first, already knowing she wouldn’t be there. Then he’d swung by Carnal, since that was the place they first met, but it was still closed and there was no sign of her car anywhere. That was it, he was at a total loss, and now he was here, on the phone with her friend, the only option he had left.

No thoughts came to him, and he blew out a heavy breath. What could he say to her to make her give him something, anything that might help him find her friend? Unlike him, she didn’t have anything to lose.

His gaze fell to where his right hand clenched the gearshift. Then he looked to the passenger seat where the tiny box sat. He’d tossed it there when he’d first climbed behind the wheel, having been too preoccupied with getting to Patricia rather than seeing what was inside. Now, curiosity arrested him. She had left it behind with Casey to give to him. He couldn’t imagine what was inside of it. It didn’t look like the kind of box that would hold jewelry, but he was certain that whatever it was, it would be invaluable to him.

He knew he should be focusing on answering her friend’s question, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that this box and whatever was inside of it, was the most important thing just then.

He reached for it, picking it up and turning it over in his hand, taking its measure, making a dozen guesses about what could be inside, and knowing that none of them even came close to what it actually was.

“Hello,” Jules was saying in his ear, trying to regain his attention. “Hey, are you ignoring me? I asked you a question, dumbass.”

Jon wasn’t hearing anything she said. He was too busy staring at this little box. He had an inexplicable feeling that once he opened that lid, everything was going to change. It was unsettling. His heart pounded in his chest, in his temples, so loud it drowned out the world around him.

It was just him and the box.

With trembling hands, Jon held his breath and lifted the lid.

“Booties.” The word left his lips on a hushed whisper.

“Excuse me?” Jules sounded as confused as he felt.

His voice grew stronger. “Booties. She gave me booties.” Hooking his finger through the tied laces, he lifted the small, white baby booties from their nest of cotton batting and held them aloft in front of his face. They swayed, entrancing him as he puzzled over their meaning. Why the hell would she give him baby booties?

Again, Jules was yapping in his ear, but he tuned her out, too busy thinking. Wrapping his fingers around the tiny shoes, Jon looked to the box for more clues, although if he were being honest, he already knew their meaning, he just wasn’t ready to face it yet.

Inside, resting on top of the square piece of batting was a distinctive black and white photograph. Jon’s heart slammed against his ribcage as he carefully peeled it from the box, careful not to tear the edges.

The photo was grainy and there wasn’t a single identifiable thing about it, but he knew instantly what it meant. He scanned the white edges where information had been typed out and saw Patricia’s name. Below that, in the top left corner, were the words ‘Baby’s First Photo’. Holy crap, he was going to be sick.