Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) by Elle Thorne

there are always things that happen in medical procedures, even when the utmost care is taken.”
    “And what will happen to 42?”
    “She’ll be home in four hours.”
    Finn nodded, but wasn’t completely convinced, though he didn’t know why. He didn’t think Kal was lying to him, but something made him wonder, gave him pause. It concerned him.
    “My turn.” Kal rubbed his jaw. “41—she wasn’t out of town, was she?”
    Finn wanted to lie. He truly did. But he had never lied to Kal. They’d always been too close. “Not exactly.”
    Kal turned on one heel and marched back toward the entrance. “Go get your next target,” he said over his shoulder. “If you need anything, let me know.”
----
    F inn drove back to Houston with Kal’s questions and assurances heavy on his mind. He took the rental car to a parking spot at a truck stop and studied the files for 43. Downtown Houston. He drove the distance and parked outside her gym, then he waited. For five hours he waited, but there was no sign of her. She should have arrived four hours ago.
    He drove by her apartment. Her car was nowhere in sight. Her job, the same, no sign of her.
    Should he contact the team and tell them she wasn’t around? After telling them that Marissa was gone? Kal knew the truth about that, but Finn was sure Kal wouldn’t tell, even if his life depended on it. But after saying Marissa was out of town, Finn didn’t think it would look good for him to have another missed target. Maybe he should move on to 44.
    He planned to move on to 44, but for some reason, some cursed reason, he drove to 42’s apartment. It had been more than four hours. It had been seven. No. Eight.
    Her car wasn’t in her parking spot. The lights were off in her apartment. This could be nothing. Probably was. But he wanted to be sure.
    He parked down the street and decided to walk by her place.
    He wasn’t even halfway down the block toward her apartment complex when he walked by an appliance store with televisions in the window. Televisions with 42’s picture on them.
    Finn stopped. He tried to hear the news story through the glass, but couldn’t. He didn’t really need to, though. He could see what the story was about when her picture flashed onscreen again and above it was the word MISSING.
    Kal wouldn’t have lied. Finn believed that with all he held to be true. But something had happened. And until he knew what—
    He tapped out a message to Kal on his phone.
    What happened to 42?
    Two minutes later, a reply came from Kal.
    What do you mean? The Installment team returned her hours ago.

Chapter 11
    M arissa picked up a package of chewing tobacco from the corner store. Her father had never liked flowers. He thought they were a waste of money, and he had never seen the point of putting flowers on graves. So she wasn’t going to take him flowers. She put the chewing tobacco in the same bag that held the fishing lures she’d taken out of Dad’s tackle box. She’d taken a moment to use a pair of snips to clip the hooks off. Couldn’t have a stupid bird or squirrel seeing the lures and deciding they were lunch, only to be hooked. Now the lures were rendered useless, at least at hooking.
    Along with the tobacco, the lures seemed like the perfect thing to put on Dad’s gravesite.
    The drive was long, because he’d asked to be buried near the coast he liked to fish so much. So she’d found the cemetery closest to his fishing spot, off the jetties in Port O’Connor and had gotten him a plot there. It was the best she could do at the time. Little did she know it would have cotton fields right next to it. Dad had loved cotton fields, had said they reminded him of his childhood.
    She parked her car and jumped out. The sky looked like rain on the horizon, across the cotton fields and pastures. It smelled like rain, too. Just what she needed, to be caught in a summer thunderstorm on the Texas Gulf Coast.
    What she needed was time to talk to Dad about what she