“Infection?” Joe said. “What about the fact that your due date isn’t until— Shit!” He swerved to avoid a truck.
Fuck! Was it too soon? I didn’t want to be the one to ask that question.
“Thirty-two weeks,” Joe was saying, more to himself than to Melanie or me. “The baby will be okay. The baby has to be okay.”
“Just stop and let me out,” I said. “I can walk the mile to the guesthouse.”
“That’s silly,” Melanie said. “We can take you home.”
The few minutes to get home seemed like hours to me, so I could only imagine what it was like for Joe.
“Get her back to the hospital,” I said when they dropped me off. “I’ll call everyone and let them know what’s going on.”
“You find Marjorie and her mom,” Melanie said. “We’re counting on you, Bryce.”
My eyes still swollen and slightly painful, I ran into the guesthouse. I quickly dialed Talon and then Ryan to let them know what was happening.
Joe.
My best friend.
His baby was early. Premature. I should be at the hospital with him and his wife.
But Marjorie…
Her mother…
Colin…
Someone needed to focus on them.
And that someone was me.
I’d be on pins and needles until I heard from Joe. Thirty-two weeks. Was that considered premature? I remembered from Henry’s birth at thirty-eight weeks that the doctors liked a woman to make it to thirty-six. Plus, Melanie was nearly forty-one. She was hot and gorgeous, but old when it came to childbearing.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Now what?
Cade Booker.
I had to figure out who the hell Cade Booker was and why he was keeping information from us. I had no idea if he could lead me to Marjorie, but at the moment, he was all I had. Now the police would be looking for him as well.
He’d probably gone on the run, anyway. A man couldn’t just pepper spray a Steel and walk away unscathed.
There would have been questions.
Lots of questions.
Where was I supposed to begin?
I fired up my laptop and started searching for Cade Booker. His law firm came up first. His bio was no help. It extolled his virtues.
Right.
Why was I doing this when I had access to the best PIs in the business? I put in a call to Ruby. She didn’t pick up, so I left her a message. She was probably out working on finding Marjorie and her mother.
Why hadn’t I gotten the number for those PIs, Mills and Johnson, from Joe?
I tried the search engine again. Several of those companies offering arrest records surfaced. For a mere membership fee of twenty-nine ninety-five, I could get all the information they had on Cade Booker and anyone else.
I was desperate, so I succumbed. There went thirty bucks I’d never see again.
Cade Booker, age thirty-eight. Same age as Joe and me.
Relatives. Alessandra Booker, age twenty-four. Too old to be Cade’s kid. Dominic Booker, age twenty-four. Richard Booker, deceased.
Dominic.
I’d heard that name recently.
Yeah, Marjorie’s trainer. His name wasn’t Booker, though. It was James.
I was going crazy. So Marjorie’s trainer was named Dominic. Who cared?
Cade Booker had an exemplary FBI record as far as I could tell, but he’d only been with the bureau for a couple years.
I needed a hacker.
The Spider.
He still hadn’t responded to any of Joe’s or my attempts to get in touch. I’d committed his information to memory. Why not use it? I certainly had no idea where else to turn.
I logged in to the account Joe had created to communicate with the Spider.
And jolted in surprise.
An email was waiting.
Chapter Twelve
Marjorie
I couldn’t reach the phone, but I could create a diversion. I shoved the rest of the piece of pizza in my mouth and chewed ferociously. Then I made the best gagging sound I could and spat the contents onto the table in front of me.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Alex spat out. “More puke?”
I kept choking and coughing, feigning gagging. I waved my hands around, clutching my throat. I said nothing, continued to gasp.
Someone had told me a long time ago that if you could ask for the Heimlich maneuver, you didn’t need it. What I needed now was for them to think I needed it.
Dominic ran into the room. “Shit. What now?”
“The dumb bitch shoved a whole piece of pizza into her mouth and now she’s choking.”
“Help her!” Dominic yelled. “We need her!”
“I no longer care, Dom.”
“I do.” Dominic grabbed me around the chest.
I looked quickly at the table. The cell phone was gone. Colin had pocketed it. Before Dominic could break my ribs, I spat a chunk onto the floor and then inhaled a deep gasp. “I’m good. I’m good.”
Dominic let me go. “Thank God.”
I turned to Alex. “Thanks for your help.”
Again the eye roll. What was up with her? Then I rolled my own eyes. Stupid question. She drugged and kidnapped people for a living. I really didn’t need to know anything else to explain her behavior.
I looked quickly at Colin, and he nodded ever so slightly at me. Good. He had the phone. Now to figure out how to get alone and make a call.
First things first. “Thank you,” I said to Dominic.
“She shoved a whole piece in her mouth, Dom. What was that about?”
“I’m hungry,” I said. “How the heck do I know when we’ll get food again?”
“I told you you’d get breakfast,” Dominic said.
“Pardon me for not taking you at your word.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” Colin said.
“You didn’t eat hardly anything,” Alex said.
“I still have to piss,” he said.
“I have to go too,” I said. “Where’s the can?”
“You want to go with him?”
“No thanks. I’ll wait outside the door while he goes.”
“I don’t think so,” Alex said. “Not happening.”
“Fine. Whatever. But I might upchuck again.”
“There can’t possibly be anything left in you,” she groused.
“I’ll take him to the bathroom,” Dominic said. “You stay here with her.”
Colin would be alone with the phone. A good thing, but did he know the right number to text?
Yes! He might not have my brothers’ numbers, but he did have Jade’s.
Perfect.
He’d send a text— No, better yet, he should call and leave the line open so Jade could have it traced. Would he know to do that? We didn’t have a lot of time. Dave could come back and realize his phone was missing any minute.
At least Colin would do something. I just wasn’t sure what.
Damn. I should have gotten the phone from him somehow. But could I have? Dave had left it next to Colin, far from my reach.
I inhaled slowly and then let the air out. Trust. I had to trust Colin to do this right.
Each second he was gone in the bathroom felt like hours. Pretty soon, Dominic would be pounding on the door telling him to hurry. Colin was a nervous wreck as it was.