Stitch by Jaime Lewis (ebook reader online .txt) 📗

“Because she told me not to tell anyone,” Alex snapped back at him.

Ace looked at Larkin. “Look, as you go about your undercover assignment, can you at least give Detective McDonnell a call if you run across anything you may hear?”

“Absolutely. And I really meant it. I never intended to hurt Mia.”

Ace smirked. “You didn’t hurt her; you gave her that final push in the direction we were all hoping for.”

Alex snorted a laugh and Ace smiled down at her, and winked.

Ace glanced around the apartment.  It was clean and neat, just like Mia.  She was always the organized one of the family. His eyes stopped on a vase of yellow roses on the breakfast bar. They looked fresh.

“Who sent her flowers?” He asked, and he didn’t miss the annoyed looked that passed on Larkin’s face.

“Dr. Walters.”

Ace glanced at Alex. “I think I’d like to meet this Dr. Walters before we head home.” He looked at Detective McDonnell. “Would you have a problem if Alex and I stopped in to meet Dr. Walters? After all, I am the concerned brother of his missing sister.”

The detective shook his head and grinned.  “No, I think it would be fine.  Just don’t go beating on the guy.”

Ace took another look at Alex and winked.  “It never crossed my mind.”

◆◆◆

Ace sat across the desk from Dr. Walters, trying to figure out if this guy was sincere, or just a good actor. His concern for Mia was more along the lines of a significant other, than an actual colleague, and that pissed him off now that he had a good idea of what the doctor’s intentions really were.

“As I told the detective the other day, if there is anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Mia is a great asset to the clinic, and we are all very concerned.”

“I appreciate your concern. My family and I are all shaken by her disappearance.”  Ace stood and motioned to Alex that it was time to go.  She had seemed preoccupied since they had sat down, which wasn’t like her. She usually was all into the details. “Well, we won’t keep you any longer. We just wanted to stop in and be sure that you were aware of the situation.”

“I appreciate that. And, again, anything I can do, please let me know.  Mia is special.”

Ace had to bite the inside of his cheek to not lash out at the guy. He and Mia needed to have a conversation about this guy. There was no way in hell she would still work for this character after all of this was over. He hoped that now she and Stitch were dating, she would decide to stay in Virginia Beach.

Dr. Walters walked them out to the reception area. As they parted ways, Alex almost ran into a gentleman coming in thru the door.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” she said to the man, and he just smiled.

“No harm,” he replied and held the door for both her and Ace as they exited.  When Ace looked back over his shoulder, the guy was checking out Alex’s backside. Typically actions like that brought out the caveman in him and pissed him off, but lately, he’d been trying not to let a guy admiring his fiancé bother him.  Instead, he took it as a compliment. That is unless he was acting like an ass about it and blatantly gawking, then he’d make it known that she was his.

Ace snuck a peek over at Alex noticing she had remained quiet as they pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the airport. She was staring out the window. Ace recognized the look on her face. Something was on her mind, and she was thinking through her thoughts. About mid-way through their visit with Dr. Walters, she had sort of just shut down and sat there with a blank look on her face. It was odd because, in a situation as such, Alex liked to interrogate just as much as he did.

He was about to ask her what was wrong when she turned to face him.

“We need to call Detective McDonnell.”

Ace raised an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

“Just pull the car over.  Right there, pull into that parking lot on the left.”  She demanded in a serious tone that concerned Ace. He did as she said and pulled into a bank parking lot. He put the car in park then shifted in his seat to hear what she had to say.

“Remember when Mia was telling us about the night she was abducted?”  Ace nodded his head; how could he forget. “Well, she mentioned when she went running, she was wearing a black zip-up hoodie, but when she was abducted, someone had removed it.”

“Yeah?” He wondered where she was going with this.

“Ace, Mia’s hoodie was in Dr. Walters’ office.”

He studied her for a few seconds. He saw the seriousness in her expression and knew she wasn’t joking.

“I know it was hers because I bought it for her. It has the red “M” embroidered on the left sleeve.” She took his hand, and her emerald green eyes bore into his. “Ace, Dr. Walter’s had a hand in Mia’s abduction.”

◆◆◆

Elijah was caught off guard when Vargas, his main informant in the NYPD, entered the clinic's front door. He was alarmed because Vargas never showed his face at the clinic during office hours.

Curious about the detective’s spontaneous visit, he quickly finished up his conversation with the owner of one of his patients. Giving the Shepard a scratch on the back of his neck, he waved to Mr. Hines as he exited.

He made eye contact with Vargas and nodded for him to follow him.

Once they were in his office with the door closed, he turned on the detective.

“I thought I told you to keep your distance from the clinic. I don’t need anyone getting ideas because they saw you here. It’d be different if you had an animal, but