Tell Me a Lie (The Story Series Book 3) by Tamara Lush Page B

could hold.
    I padded back to the bed in the dark and patted the sheets for my phone. Finding it, I flicked it on. It was midnight, and I’d been asleep for nearly six hours.
    So it was one in the morning in São Paulo. I checked my texts. Weird. Caleb hadn’t messaged me. I frowned at the glowing device in my hand.
    It wasn’t like him to not text me. Or call. Or both.
    Hello sweetie! I woke up after sleeping for six hours. I’m going back to bed but text me to let me know you’re back in the hotel and safe, okay?
    I waited a few minutes, staring at the screen. Caleb always returned my texts immediately. He’d texted when he was dining with the governor, when he was in business meetings in D.C., when he once went to China and the time difference was a half-day. If he couldn’t talk, he’d reply with something quick. Call later. ILY , he’d write. The ILY was his shorthand for I love you, and it meant he was super busy.
    Now, nothing.
    I dialed his number, and it went straight to voicemail. His mailbox was full, and I couldn’t leave a message. What the hell? I sent him a short email.
    My heart started to thump faster. Where was he? I knew the party had probably lasted late; it was Brazil, after all. But this late? Surely there’d be lots of drinking and celebrating. Maybe they’d all gone to a restaurant or bar afterward?
    I dialed again and got the voicemail. Then I texted a second time.
    Caleb, I’m worried about you. I keep getting your voicemail and it’s full. Please call me. Or text. Please? I love you.
    I checked my email. Nothing. Facebook. Nothing. I looked at Caleb’s Facebook page, and he’d posted some photos of the party at around six my time—they were mostly the same photos he’d sent me. He also posted a photo of him with the architectural team, and I swiped and pinched and expanded the picture. Although he was smiling, Caleb looked exhausted, with deep circles under his eyes. Travel didn’t usually tire him, and the time difference between Florida and Brazil was only one hour, so jetlag wasn’t an issue.
    Was he sick? He hadn’t been feeling well. Was that why he wasn’t answering his phone or texts?
    I scrolled through the comments and didn’t see any from him.
    There had to be another way to contact him. The hotel! He’d sent me his hotel name and room number. I read back through hundreds of our messages and found the information, then dialed. The hotel operator answered in Portuguese.
    “Good evening, I’d like room 4000 please. The presidential suite.”
    The operator responded in English. “One moment, ma’am.”
    The phone rang and rang, and then the operator’s heavily accented voice came on the line. “No one is answering. I’m sorry.”
    I hung up and my stomach dropped as my phone’s screen faded to black, leaving me in the darkness. Where could he be? I had a bad feeling about Caleb’s silence. Immediately my paranoid mind defaulted to the obvious explanation: he was with a woman. A final fling before he was tied down with a wife and a baby. Of course my mind went to that scenario, because before Caleb, I hadn’t been with many faithful guys.
    No, it wasn’t possible, I told myself. Caleb was the most trustworthy man I’d met. He loved me. He wasn’t like the men I’d dated before him. He’d even had the chance to cheat on his first wife, who he hadn’t truly loved, and yet he didn’t.
    So where was he?
    A darker thought came to mind. What if he was hurt? What if something happened to him? Did they have kidnappings in Brazil? Terrorist attacks? I flicked to my favorite news app and scanned the world news. Iraq…Beirut…Indonesia. There were no stories out of Brazil.
    Chewing on a thumbnail, I took another pass through all of my social media accounts to see if anything new had been posted. It hadn’t, and I leaned over to the nightstand and flicked on a lamp. I shivered and covered myself with a sheet, and then I dialed Colin. I figured they would have