Chapter 33
thirty-three
MAVERICK
Sneaking out of hotel rooms and into stairwells or back alleys has become alarmingly easy in the last few days.
Either everyone is becoming complacent or they’re too wrapped up in each other to notice.
Kai has been clinging to Belle, and I swear Willa and Declan are even going to the bathroom at the same time.
The only other solo person here is Harrison, and he’s so absorbed in his research that I could set his hair on fire and he wouldn’t notice.
I’m fine being ignored. I grew up that way.
It was one of the many things Jo and I bonded over.
Except I got used to having her attention all the time, and I swear I’m starving without it.
It’s why I’m currently in this stairwell that smells like hot piss and stale beer.
Needing to figure things out with Ezra is another reason, but I’m still struggling there.
He was back in my life for what felt like the blink of an eye, and I think my brain is sort of refusing to believe it happened.
I can’t talk to my therapist right now, so I’m just focusing on Jo and ignoring the other mountain man sized problem.
“Maverick, I know it’s you again,” Gavin says by way of greeting.
“Just give me an address. Drop a pin. I’ll even take a paper map mailed to me with a red line leading to them.
Just tell me where they are,” I say, trying to keep my volume low, but knowing I’m failing as my frustration increases.
I’ve been sneaking off with Kai’s burner phone at least four times a day to call Gavin and demand he tell me where Jo and Ezra are.
I asked nicely the first time, and he hung up on me.
The only strategy I have left is to annoy him until he tells me just so I’ll leave him alone.
If I had even a small sense of where they went, I would be out there looking for them.
Gavin sighs so loud that I know it came all the way from his toes. “I have my reasons—”
“You’ve said that, and I’ve told you to take your reasons and shove them up your tightly clenched asshole.”
“I have my reasons,” Gavin starts again. “And the biggest one should be getting to your hotel room in less than five minutes. Call me after that.” Then the bastard just hangs up.
The only reason I don’t chuck the phone down the stairs is because I don’t want to explain to Kai that I’ve been nagging his dad on the phone he isn’t supposed to have.
Harrison would have a stroke if he knew we had it, but we collectively decided that Gavin not telling us to get rid of it meant that it was fine.
I book it down the stairs to the first floor. Harrison always insists on first-floor rooms, so it’s easier to bug out.
We’ve been watching a lot of MASH reruns. Old-timey military is now part of my vocabulary.
“Where’s the reason?” I ask, bursting through my hotel room door. It’s also Harrison’s. We’ve been sharing, and since it’s a guarantee that no one will be getting naked and freaky in our room, it’s also always the room we meet up in.
“The what?” Declan asks, turning away from the game of poker they’re all playing. This hotel has rooms with a small kitchen, so they’re able to play at an actual table and not on a bed like usual.
“I think he means me.”
I turn to see Anderson Sinclair so close to me that my chest brushes his. I do a half scream, half yelp and fall back onto the bed behind me.
“Now is not the time for a nap, Maverick,” Harrison says, squeezing in behind Anderson and taking the last seat at the table.
I sit up and wait for someone to tell me what the hell is going on before I embarrass myself again.
I know Anderson is definitely the reason Gavin gave in, but unless he has Ezra and Jo’s exact latitude and longitude, I really don’t care what he has to say.
“Eva has been taken care of,” he says, then winks at me.
Alright, maybe I do care what he has to say.
“I’ve made sure her assets were unfrozen and left to you. I thought it fair to tell you in person.”
“And Patrick?” Willa asks at the same time Kai says, “So we can go home now?”
“Patrick is still unaccounted for, and—Harrison can attest to this—we believe he is no longer a threat to most of you now that Eva isn’t pulling his leash.”
I look between Harrison, who is nodding, and Anderson, who is patiently waiting for us to digest what he just said.
“What do you mean, most of us? Is he still after me? I don’t know what good I’d be to him now with both my parents gone,” I say, shrugging like it’s no big deal to be an orphan now. It honestly should feel like a bigger deal than it does. I mourned those relationships years ago.
“Not you,” Anderson says. He pulls out a file that I didn’t see tucked under his arm and hands it to me. What I see stops my breath.
“What is it?” Belle asks. I hand her the file and pull out the phone, hitting dial on the only number in there.
“You tell me where the fuck she is right now, Gavin!” I yell the moment he answers.
“Why do you have a phone?” Harrison asks, sounding both annoyed and exhausted.
“Call me when you get to the intersection of Tree Farm Road and Golf Course Lane,” Gavin says and hangs up. This fucking prick is always doing that to me.
“Is he fucking with me?” I ask Anderson, since he seems to be the only one clued into what’s going on right now. “Those are actual street names, and I’m supposed to know where they are?”
“I have a car waiting for you with the address of that intersection programmed. Gavin will give you specific directions once you get there,” Anderson says, handing me a set of keys. “It’s the black one.”
I watch the back of his perfectly tailored gray suit as he leaves, shutting the door behind him.
“Thank you?” I say, confused and annoyed that no one knows how to say goodbye anymore. Then I hear a gasp as everyone else sees what I saw in the folder.
A bag is suddenly shoved into my arms. “Go,” Belle says.
I take the bag and run out of the room, hitting all the buttons on the key fob to find the car. It doesn’t take long, considering the sleek black sports car in the first parking spot in front of the hotel is the one responding. I’d be a lot more excited about this if I wasn’t in a panic over Jo.
That folder contained pictures of what must have been Patrick’s apartment.
There were pictures of her everywhere, but that’s not what freaked me out the most. He had a sex doll that looked exactly like her that he had stripped naked and cut apart.
I needed to get to her. I needed to see that she was safe and in one piece.
Gavin says she is, but I don’t trust him.
I won’t trust anything except my own eyes.
Starting the car, I wait for the GPS to turn on and pull out of the parking lot the minute it connects, tires squealing.
Maine, here I come.