The Billionaire's Getaway Tryst

~Chapter 40~

I exhaled through my nose heavily before my cell phone began ringing. The screen flashed with Katherine Maxwell.

Without thinking twice, I accepted her call even though I was caught off guard. She had told me that she would call me only when she had something solid about this havoc of a situation coiling us in its vicious circle. "Hello?" I spoke with my brows furrowed.

"Skye, I am at your place and wherever you are, come here immediately. I need to talk to you ASAP," Katherine said, her voice scratchy and clear but there was something else. Something that was close to panic and it would be the first time I've heard that note in Katherine Maxwell's hard, strong voice.

"What is it?" I couldn't help but ask her. It was a reflex thing.

"Now!" Was her order before she hung up the call.

There were millions of thoughts wreathing around my head but the dominating one was Katherine's urgency. Not wanting to delay any further, I was out of my tree house in a jiffy and walked the long distance toward my looming mansion.

After five minutes of trudging, reaching my main door, putting the password in my keypad, asking an immensely alarmed Sophia about where Ms. Maxwell was, I finally walked into the living room.

There she was sitting on a single couch with a hardened countenance. Katherine finally met my gaze as I took a seat adjacent to her on the long couch. "What is it?" I repeated the question, this time more firmly.

"Your dad's gone missing," she replied even before I had finished asking the question.

I wanted to laugh and say that she must be joking but this was Katherine and she could never joke even if her life depended on it. My jaw clenched as the seriousness of her words registered in my brain. I wanted to be angry, upset, heck even yell at someone but I pushed down the clawing beast inside of me. "What do you mean he's missing?"

She took a sharp intake of breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. There was a pregnant pause wherein she avoided my stern stare. "I want to tell you something and you need to hear me out till the very end." This time she met my eyes head on.

"Go ahead," I told her blankly as I intentionally cleared my face of any emotions but internally I was freaking out for my dad. Sure, we've had our differences but he never misses asking me to go fishing and playing golf with him every once in a while.

"Okay so I know I had said that I was 75% sure of who our person could be and I'd let you know once I would reach 100%. Well forget facts over doubts. It doesn't matter anymore since it's about John," she said, still not getting to the point.

I gave her an impatient look and she rolled her eyes.

"I am getting there, Skye. So you remember when I'd said that a paparazzo was following me?" She asked me, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded my head but never did I expect for it to be such a huge deal to be a part of her narrative.

"Yeah and he had been following me non-stop everywhere. It was discreet but each time I knew that he was around. Then a few days ago, I decided to catch him just outside my building. With great efforts of threatening skills from my side, did I bring him inside my apartment and securely tied him to a chair." She paused and took a sip of water from the glass before putting it back on the coffee table.

The longer she took a pause, the more my anticipation grew like an unending vine. But for some reason, I was scared and something was gnawing at my insides.

"But I was disappointed with all of his answers. It was just like Rick Stile all over again." I had told Katherine about the whole Rick Stile situation when Valerie was pining her doubts on her. "This guy, Stephen, said that he was also approached by someone through ARA and the person used an androgynous device while talking to him on the phone. I handed him over to the police for stalking me."