Sabotaged by Dani Pettrey

take my break and grab a bite.”
    Ethan glanced back at the kitchen. “Enjoy that gorgeous girlfriend of yours.”
    â€œAlways.” Gage smiled. She was the light of his life.
    Entering the kitchen, he found Darcy hunched over her laptop at the far table.
    â€œHow’s it going?” he asked, swooping in beside her.
    â€œGage!” She swatted him. “You scared me.”
    â€œSorry. Didn’t mean to.” Okay, maybe a little. He loved getting the best of her—it happened so rarely.
    â€œGuess I was engrossed.” She smiled, finally looking away from her work for more than a millisecond.
    Gage lifted an orange from his sack and started peeling it—citrus infusing the air. “I’m guessing you found something?”
    Darcy glanced around the room and slid closer to Gage so her shoulder was flush against his. Now he was engrossed.
    She lifted her notes, glancing around again to be sure no one was paying particular attention to them and then whispered, “I’m waiting to hear back on a couple favors I called in, but it looks like Frank Jacobs has a record.”
    He tried to ignore the tantalizing feel of her breath along his neck, her vanilla scent mixing with the citrus. “Really?”
    â€œYep. Frank Weber is clean, but Frank Jacobs was involved in a breaking and entering on Kodiak that appears to have gone very wrong.” She couldn’t hide her smile. Uncovering the truth was what she lived for.

    An hour of disturbing images later, the video mercifully ended.
    Reef leaned over and whispered, “I see what Ashley means about kindling a fire.”
    Kirra nodded.
    She’d been doing a lot of that lately. Nodding silently—which was so unlike the Kirra he knew. Normally, he couldn’t shut her up. Here she was different. Sullen. Guarded. She was afraid of something or someone on campus. He’d sensed it the moment she’d reluctantly agreed to visit the university, and her increasing discomfort with each passing minute waspalpable. Something was wrong, something that reached far deeper than Meg’s disappearance.
    The lights switched on, and the professor answered a few questions before dismissing the class.
    Reef and Kirra headed against the flow of traffic, moving down the steps to the front of the auditorium as the rest of the students piled out the exit doors at the rear of the building.
    â€œProfessor Baxter,” Reef said.
    The man turned from slipping his laptop into his briefcase. “Yes?”
    â€œCan we talk to you for a moment?”
    â€œMy office hours are from two to four, Tuesday and Thursday.”
    â€œThis will only take a few moments of your time, and it’s vitally important.”
    â€œI appreciate your attempt at brevity, but when it comes to the state of the environment, believe me, there are no quick questions or answers for that matter.”
    â€œThis isn’t about the environment.”
    â€œOh?” He frowned.
    â€œWe’d like to ask you about one of your students. Meg Weber.”
    He slid his laptop in the case. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss my students.”
    â€œShe’s my cousin,” Kirra said, “and she’s missing.”
    â€œMissing?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œA lot of college students appear to be missing now and again, but they always turn up.”
    How could the man be so nonchalant about such a topic?
    â€œIt’s their first time away from home, their first taste ofreal freedom, and when they embrace it, they are often assumed missing by overbearing, frantic parents whose need to control borders on the obsessive.”
    Reef was guessing the man didn’t have a college-age daughter or he’d probably view the situation very differently.
    â€œNo. She’s definitely missing,” Kirra said, her voice tight.
    His brows hiked up. “If that’s the case, why aren’t the police