Silence followed again.
When Richard Hayes finally spoke, his voice had sharpened.
“Stay where you are,” he said firmly. “I’m sending a car to bring you home.”
Another pause followed.
Then he added quietly:
“And God help the man who made you cry in the rain today, because I certainly will not.”
The Disappearance
Three months passed.
During that time Charlotte Hayes vanished completely from the social world that Julian Mercer now dominated alongside Victoria Lane.
Julian enjoyed the attention.
Technology magazines praised his company’s newest project, a revolutionary transportation structure called AeroBridge, a massive engineering initiative requiring a rare ultra-light alloy steel that only a handful of manufacturers could produce at the necessary scale.
Julian had secured a supplier through several intermediaries.
He never bothered investigating who ultimately controlled the supply.
