She explained her absence was also the reason Gabriel’s online calendar was so empty. Without her entering his appointments, she confessed her boss had a tendency to jot things down on sticky notes whose information occasionally made its way into his phone’s calendar before being tossed in the trash. In fact, though Marnie wasn’t officially returning until Monday, she’d dropped in just to try to get a jump start on reorganizing the mess she predicted Gabriel had left her. But she’d been pleasantly surprised that the office had been less cluttered than she’d anticipated.

When Alyssa had asked about the case Grace had mentioned, Marnie apologized for not knowing anything about it, going on to explain that if Gabriel had taken on a case, the client’s number would likely show up on the phone bill, which prompted Alyssa to inquire about the business phone.

Marnie waved her hand in the air to dismiss the idea. ‘Oh, that’s just for me to field calls and take messages. Since he’s always on the move, Mr. Kensington prefers to use his cell. In fact, I think the only reason he keeps an extension in his office is for me to talk to him without having to get up.’

So now, while her team was busy searching boxes and computers, Alyssa was systematically going down the list of numbers from a cell phone bill left opened on Gabriel’s desk. Immediately, she’d recognized Lydia’s, Grace’s, and Addis’s numbers and crossed those off. There was one ninety-six second call to Mack which she guessed was a return call from a twenty-second message he’d left ten days earlier. If nothing else, the phone records showed that Gabriel was in touch with Grace far more often than he was with Mack.

For the briefest of moments, she wondered what her relationship would’ve been like with her own brother if he hadn’t been ripped from their lives when he was four. But that wasn’t only a dangerous path of ‘what if’ to travel, it wasn’t where her head needed to be, so she shut it down before it got a toehold and distracted her from her job of bringing Addis and Emerson home alive. She refused to accept the possibility that her team may be on a recovery mission as opposed to a rescue. She’d learned early on in her career to focus on the positive or she’d easily lose her mind to the darkness that often stole into the lives of those in law enforcement.