Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required by Jennifer Apodaca Read Free Book Online Page A

that faced Mission Trail Street. I walked with a heavy stride to the strip mall that housed Heart Mates. Going into work was better than sitting home and stewing. I unlocked the door and went in.
    The smell of fresh paint hit me. Propping the door open, I looked around. Jeez, the place was a mess. Blaine wasn’t there yet, so his desk in the reception area was still covered. I had planned on picking up the couch the day before, then spending the rest of the day cleaning. I had an open house in two days and I didn’t care.
    I would cancel it.
    Almost against my will, I looked right to the little sitting area where the brown leather couch was meant to go. Empty. The couch, the open house, the empty suite that I had coveted on the other side of that wall, none of it mattered to me anymore. I just wanted Angel to turn up safe and sound.
    Shaking my head, I knew I had to pull myself together. Make coffee, open up everything, and start cleaning. I hoped that the mindless activity would help me think of something, anything that might help us find Angel.
    I also wanted to call Detective Vance to see what he knew.
    “Hey, boss.”
    I jumped and realized I had been standing in the middle of the reception area, mindlessly staring at the sheet-covered desk. I turned my head to see Blaine come in carrying two paper cups and a white bag, all from Smash Coffee. Wearing his customary blue button-down work shirt and Levis, he settled his brown gaze on me. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here, but I brought you coffee and a muffin. Chocolate chip. Any word on Angel?”
    Small towns didn’t have many secrets. I shook my head and took the coffee from him. It smelled like fresh-ground beans. “No. Thanks for the coffee.”
    He waved it off, set his coffee and the muffin bag on the floor. He stripped the paint-splattered sheet off his desk. “Anything I can do, Sam? You know, to help find Angel?”
    “I don’t know.” I moved the two blue pillows with the cute sayings—the ones Grandpa had made for me—off Blaine’s desk. I had put them under the sheet for safekeeping. Now I didn’t know what to do with them. Heart Mates and all my dreams had dropped like a lead ball down my priority list. “Gabe and I are going out to Daystar later to see what we can find out.”
    Blaine set the folded sheet on the ground and picked up his coffee and the bag to put them on his desk. Then he frowned at the floor. “What’s that?”
    “What?” I turned to look at the floor by the door. There was a greeting-card-size, grayish lavender envelope on the carpet. It sort of blended into the steel-gray-colored carpet. I hadn’t even noticed it. It must have been slid under the door.
    Angel! My mouth dried, sealing my tongue to the roof. I went a few steps and bent over to pick it up. My hands shook and my palms were damp and tingling. Could it be a ransom note? A threat? In a greeting-card envelope? Did that make sense?
    God, just let Angel be all right. Please. I prayed silently.
    “Boss?” Blaine came around his desk. “Open it.”
    I lifted my eyes to Blaine’s. He thought of Angel as a friend, too. Then I stuck my index finger under the fold and tore the envelope.
    I pulled out a store-bought card. It had a picture of a colorful bouquet on the front, with the words “Love is in Bloom.”
    “Maybe it’s from Gabe?” Blaine asked.
    I shook my head. This wasn’t Gabe’s style. And we’d both been preoccupied with Angel. No, this was something else. My fingers felt thick and clumsy as I tried to open the card.
    Finally the card opened. It took me a second to see the inside had been left blank by the card company, but someone had pasted on big chunks of printed words.
    Huh? If this was a ransom demand, they had done it wrong. In all the movies, the kidnappers always cut the letters or words out of magazines, but these words didn’t have a slick, glossy finish.
    The words were about the size of the type in a mass-market paperback book.
    “What