Lose Control (The Jewel Project #5)

10.1|| And Everything Goes to Hell

When Tom woke up, Angie had been gone for hours. He regretted not asking where she would meet Christine, but oh, well. So he texted her to ask how things were going and if she needed help. It was perfectly plausible that Christine had started crying and whining and Angie wasn't the type to walk away from that.

So he focused on taking a shower, getting dressed and working on a project for college. An hour later, Angie had seen but hadn't answered his message. His hands itched to call her, but he was no longer an unreasonable paranoid ass, so he texted her again instead, asking what she wanted to eat for the evening since he wanted to order something.

Still no answer, and it became increasingly hard to focus on anything else.

Calm down, asshole. She'll answer. It's not like she's going to have a sleepover with Christine without letting you know first.

But it was hard to let it go, to not glance at his phone every few seconds, to not consider trying to track her with her watch just to see where she was.

He caved. He pressed the buttons on his own watch, asking for tracking acceptance from hers. The message blinked, but was left unanswered.

Did she even repair that thing? Needing to call someone who would answer, he dialed Jimmy.

"What's up?" his brother asked, picking up after the first ring.

"Hey, did you get to fix Angie's watch?"

There was silence for a long moment. "Are you freaking out again?"

Jimmy knew him too well. "Of course not. I was just wondering. For science."

"Yeah, sure. Why don't you ask her?"

"She's not here right now."

"So you are freaking out." Jimmy sighed. "I appreciate your effort to let this go, but don't fall back into old patterns. And to answer your question, no, I didn't fix her watch. She never came by the agency to drop it off. If you're worried, just call her like a normal person."

Yes, there was that. "Okay, thanks. What are you guys doing?"

"Heading off to the final concert of our stay. I have to admit it's been fun."

"Mhm, that's great." Damn, he couldn't focus at all. "I can't wait to hear all about it when you get back."

"Is everything alright back home?"

It was, up until Angie decided to go into radio silence. "Sure."

Tom was sure Jimmy wasn't convinced, but he dropped it and just said goodbye. Tom was grateful, since it was about time to be a nag and start calling Angie.

She didn't pick up. Of course she didn't, why would she? Worry and anger started battling inside of him, though he tried to push the anger away. Something could've come up.

A knot formed in his throat as he realized the last time this had happened, she'd been kidnapped. He'd been an idiot then, getting angry, wanting to break up with her. This was years later. He only wished she'd had the foresight to fix her damn watch.

There was another possibility, though. So he grabbed his jacket and casually strolled to the Agency and inside Herrison's office all the while calling Angie, trying to reach her. No such luck.

Herrison raised his eyes from the papers he was analyzing the moment his door swung open. "Tom? What are you doing here?" He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 9 p.m. "Don't you have the night off?"

Tom ignored him. It was easy when he was bubbling with panic and half a minute from punching some poor unfortunate soul. "I was wondering..." He dropped on the chair in front of Herrison's desk. "Did you by any chance send Angie off on an assignment?"