“Hello,” she said, horribly aware she was barely covered.
The pretty woman gave her a kind smile without any judgment at all. “Hi, Laila. I’m Tessa.”
The receptionist whose ex-boyfriend had betrayed them? Laila shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. Excuse me.”
She all but ran past Zy and the gorgeous blonde, dashing down the hallway for her clothes. As she left the room, she heard the murmurings of their conversation.
“What did you do?” Zy asked.
“Zip it.” Trees sounded mad.
“Dude…”
“Don’t ‘dude’ me. You’re no saint, either.”
What did Trees mean by that?
“Fine,” Zy snapped back. “I need your help locating Tessa’s ex. We have to find him ASAP.”
Yes. And hopefully, they would make him pay for what he had done.
As Laila brushed her teeth and dressed, she tried to clear her head. But it was still filled with Trees and all the danger swirling around them. Hopefully, coffee would help.
When she returned to the kitchen, Trees, now fully dressed, turned to her with a groan. “This outfit again?”
She crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously, covering what she could of her pale pink tank and her Florida-appropriate shorts. “Nothing else is clean.”
“I can bring you some things,” Tessa offered.
“No, thank you.”
“I already tried,” Zy said.
“She’s too proud,” Trees groused.
Laila glared his way. “You know I refuse to owe anyone for anything.”
Trees rubbed at his head as if it was aching. “Can’t you consider some different clothes a favor, just this once?”
“I did not ask for this favor.”
Trees sighed. “I’m asking you as a favor to me.”
“No.”
Trees shook his head. “You are a stubborn, stubborn woman.”
“I have had to be.”
To her surprise, Tessa laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “How about as a favor to me, Laila? My baby is missing, time is running out, and Trees can help me. But he needs to concentrate.”
Her child? Laila’s heart froze. She worried about her family’s safety, yes. But Tessa was dealing with her beloved little one actually being taken. “I am so sorry. I will help in any way I can.”
Tessa looked relieved. “Would you be willing to put on a coat or wrap yourself in a blanket for a bit?”
She didn’t think twice. “Of course.”
“Thank god,” Trees muttered as he grabbed her hand. “I’ll find you something. Come with me.”
Trees led her to his bedroom. It brought back memories of being in his bed, under his body. She glanced into his bathroom and couldn’t get the steamy memory of him self-pleasuring out of her head.
He handed her a big green sweatshirt from one of his dresser drawers. “Here, put this on.”
Laila pulled the garment over her head, not surprised it swallowed her from her neck to her knees.
Then he returned to the kitchen. She followed, rolling up the too-long sleeves as he sucked down a mug of black coffee, then got down to the business of locating Tessa’s ex.
With no other way to help them, Laila started making breakfast.
As Trees was pounding away on his laptop, Zy’s phone buzzed. He scowled. “Why is One-Mile calling me on a Saturday morning?”
Laila perked up. He was smart, shrewd, and seemingly honorable. Hopefully, he was calling to help.
Trees peered at his screen. “I hope all hell isn’t breaking loose.”
“Hey, Walker…” Zy answered.
Trees listened, then sidled close to murmur in her ear, “He’s calling about the guy who took Tessa’s daughter. The stranger threatened Tessa earlier this week.”
Did Walker know something? Or had they found the little girl? But what about Tessa’s traitorous ex-boyfriend?
“Does he know this guy’s name? Or where to find him?” Zy paused. “Keep going.” Another pause. “Yeah. And?” This lull was even longer. Then Zy motioned to Trees for a pen. Tessa lunged for one on the far side of the table, then Zy scribbled a name. Johnson. “Thanks. I’ll run with it.”
“The man from the parking lot is named Johnson?” Tessa demanded once the call ended.
“Apparently. One-Mile has been researching. He showed the guy’s picture from our security footage around a police precinct this morning and got a hit. Someone arrested him a few months back for petty possession and remembered the belligerent SOB.”
Hope lit Tessa’s face. “That’s great! If we can find him…he has Hallie and—”
“Not necessarily. But if not, we’ll see what light he can shed as soon as I hunt him down. It would be fucking helpful if we had a first name.”
Laila’s heart went out to the woman.
“Where’s his picture?” Trees asked, settling behind his computer again. “Along with a last name, I might be able to get something while the scan to find your ex-douche is working in the background, Tessa.”
“Scan?” The other woman sounded confused.
“Yeah, it just takes a while to ping all the cell towers in the state.”
“You can do that?”
Trees grimaced. “Well, I’m not supposed to, but…”
Tessa frowned. “How did you get Cash’s number?”
He held up her phone. “I was doing a deep dive on this, so it wasn’t hard to find.”
“Look at Tuesday afternoon’s security footage of the EM parking lot,” Zy insisted.
“On it.” With a few clicks, a new screen popped up. Video scrolled in rapid time across his monitor.
Laila turned back to the scrambled eggs before they burned and flipped the bacon in the frying pan.
“That’s him,” Tessa gasped. “The man who stopped me in the parking lot. The man who calls when he has a demand in exchange for Hallie’s safety.”
“And if she’s not with him, he probably knows where she is,” Zy surmised.
Trees nodded. “Now if I just had a fucking first name… He never mentioned it?”
Laila plated the eggs and forked bacon from the pan, then turned to deliver the food to the table. She glanced at the face on Trees’s screen and nearly dropped everything. “Hector.”
Tessa grabbed the plates from her numb hands. “Mr. Johnson’s first name?”
“I do not know his name here, but in Mexico, in Emilo’s compound, he was called Hector.” The other hated Ramos brother. “He was greatly feared and fiercely loyal to my brother-in-law. He is not a man to cross.”
Trees scowled and rose to take Laila in his grasp. “That’s who hurt you?”
“Yes. Many times.”
Trees’s face turned molten with fury, then hardened with resolve. “He’ll find out I’m not a man to cross, either. I’ll make him pay.”
Laila turned to him in horror. “You cannot.”
“Oh, I absolutely can.”
He pulled up a search engine unlike anything she’d ever seen and typed in Hector Johnson. Moments later, an address popped up. “Gotcha, you son of a bitch. He’s in Lafayette.”