A Promise to Return (Shadow Souls MC Book 3) by Tamara Knowles Page A

that sort of thing.
     
    She decided that she would head out to his apartment and try to convince him in person. She was sure she still had the address somewhere, as long as he still lived there and hadn’t left town. There was no reason for him to stay; but, there was only one way to find out. So, she got in her car and drove to the other side of town.
     
    ***
     
    She rang at his apartment building over and over, but there was no answer. A friendly-looking woman appeared at the door. “Can I help you, miss?”
     
    “Yes. I’m looking for Chad Pender. Do you know if he is in?”
     
    “Oh no, miss. He hasn’t been home for weeks now, not since the big wedding.”
     
    “Can I speak to the super?”
     
    “You are.”
     
    Sierra smiled in acknowledgement. “Did he leave a forwarding address? Any word of where he was going? When he would be back?”
     
    “No. On the day of the wedding, he disappeared early in the morning and then never came back. Are you a friend of his?”
     
    “I hope to be. We had a falling out. I hope I can fix it.”
     
    “I hope so, too. That boy’s been a mess since he came back from Vegas. I figured he just lost big, but he has been like a maniac. Out at all hours of the day, making calls, drinking like every day is his last on earth and tomorrow he goes to the gallows. Sure hope he is all right.”
     
    “Me, too,” Sierra said, dread creeping across her. “Thank you for all your help.”
     
    “No problem. Have a nice day.”
     
    Sierra got back in her car and banged on the steering wheel in frustration. She was starting to get a sneaking, dangerous suspicion about what had happened to Chad, and she was indirectly responsible. He was either drunk somewhere in the city or the Shadow Souls had gotten to him. There, of course, was the off-chance he had just left town without any warning or word, but that didn’t sound like paranoid, meticulous Chad. She needed to find him, and she needed to get him back.
     
    Sierra also had a dark suspicion that James was involved—somehow. She knew that he didn’t want him around at all and was probably regretting letting Chad live. She didn’t know how to get information on Chad’s whereabouts. There was a whole city of options and not a whole lot of time to explore every single secret, abandoned location on every block. Plus, after their most recent interactions, she doubted James would leave anything of importance around for her to find. She knew she would have to plan very carefully, and there would be a lot of sneaking around in her future.
     
    ***
     
    That night Sierra snuck into James’ office and started going through everything on the desk. Something had to lead her back to Chad; but, there was a distressing void of anything useful. There were almost no papers. His laptop was there, but she didn’t know the password. She tried to make a guess with a couple different passwords, but they were all incorrect. She didn’t know what her next step was, and Chad could literally be anywhere.
     
    If James had any knowledge of where Chad was, it could possibly be accessed from his phone, and she did know that password. He didn’t know she knew it, but she had observed him punch it in enough times in a day she had figured it out. She snuck into his bedroom and unplugged the phone from beside his bed.
     
    She exited quickly and punched in the code. She tapped recent calls and wrote down all the numbers without caller IDs and all the names and numbers of people she didn’t recognize. She assumed that his business partners and sisters didn’t know anything about his kidnapping and murdering hobbies.
     
    She returned the phone to his room and got to work, using her laptop and an internet search engine. She was up all night searching and backtracking numbers, looking for any information that would take her to Chad. Eventually, she narrowed the list down to five numbers that she thought might be useful to her. Around six in the morning,