ESCANTA: A James Thomas Novel (The James Thomas Series Book 1) by Brooke Sivendra Page A

Holy hell.”
    “Want to place a bet on how long it will take them to realize?” Samuel asked, looking across the table at James.
    An inappropriate laugh rumbled in James’ throat. Samuel loved to gamble—on anything. “I’m scared to do that. My gut feeling is it’s going to take them a while, but they should already be on it.”
    Samuel started typing on his laptop screen and James returned his full attention to the camera screens.
    “I’ve been here for long enough that they should’ve banged down the door by now. They’re not doing their job,” Deacon said. “So, how is the trial going?”
    She raised one eyebrow incredulously. “You want to talk about the trial?”
    Deacon shrugged his shoulders. “Might as well, since we’ve got a few minutes to pass.”
    She looked a little flabbergasted. “It’s going well, I suppose. It’s hard to know. It’s a tough jury—they don’t give a lot away. A lot like you.” Her eyes challenged Deacon.
    “Me? I let my guard down, but only with those I trust.”
    “And who do you trust?”
    James noted how Mak had effectively turned the tables so that Deacon was the one answering the questions. Mak always asked a lot of questions, and James liked that about her. She was interested, and she was interesting.
    “There’re only three people in this world I completely trust,” Deacon said.
    “That’s not very many.”
    “It’s enough. How many do you trust, Mak?”
    She thought it over. “More than three,” she said with a lighter voice.
    James was confident the shock had worn off now—it was always a good strategy to divert the conversation away from the situation.
    “Can I ask you a personal question?” Deacon said.
    James’ eyes flickered to Samuel’s but he simply shrugged his shoulders, indicating he had no idea where this conversation was going either.
    James watched Mak closely now.
    “You can ask it, but I don’t know if I will answer it, she said.
    “Fair enough,” Deacon said. “I read the report, which detailed your husband’s disappearance. Why haven’t you sought to have him declared deceased?”
    It was the question that James, Samuel and Deacon had all asked. Did she have a reason to believe he was coming home? A reason that wasn’t on paper, something that wasn’t in a report. Had someone made contact with her and she’d never told anyone about it?
    She looked at the floor, crossing her legs. James didn’t think she was going to answer but she did.
    “I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me he’s dead,” she finally said.
    “Well, mystery solved,” Samuel said to James.
    James nodded his head but didn’t comment. It was the answer he’d wanted to hear, for several different reasons—one of which he didn’t want to admit.
    Deacon pressed her further. “Most people want closure when a loved one goes missing, especially after so many years.”
    “Probably. And I guess I would’ve if I’d met someone I was serious about, but things haven’t worked out that way so it doesn’t matter to me if I am legally married or not—I know my husband’s not coming home.”
    Deacon nodded his head. “I understand.”
    James checked his watch again, almost in unison with his brother. And as if right on cue, a car screeched to a stop in front of the building and two men jumped out.
    “Approaching,” James said.
    “How much trouble are they in?” Mak asked Deacon and James thought the grin on her face was adorable.
    Deacon chuckled. “A lot. We need to discuss your security contract. Obviously, there’s an issue here. When we handed over, we gave them specific requirements that we wanted in place. They have done that, but it doesn’t mean that they’re monitoring you properly. At Thomas Security we set up a lot of systems—‘trip codes’ as we call them. Basically, systems or factors that are automatically monitored together and if something changes in the system, it sends a message to our monitoring team and they