Chapter 11 #2
All right. Maybe Cash had brought her to a good place to get some help. Although she still wasn’t entirely sure what they were going to do. And she knew that Cash still wanted her to tell him about the man with the dead body.
She wished she could bring Snaggles out, but she couldn’t do that here.
“Give me one minute and I’ll be back,” Brody said. “And then we’ll help you find your sisters? It was your sisters, right?”
Oh, that’s why they were here. Cash had brought her here to help find her sisters. Relief filled her as she nodded.
Cash turned to her as Brody left the room. “Come here, Addie. You need to sit down. You’re shaking. Come drink this hot chocolate.”
Oh, so now it was all right for her to drink the hot chocolate, was it? She shook her head at him. He was out of control.
Brody returned with his laptop, sitting down and opening it. “Right. Sorry. Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes, I would really like to know that too,” Ink said.
Addie moved back in her seat by Cash. Her legs were trembling so hard she didn’t think she could stand much longer anyway. And she didn’t want to embarrass herself by collapsing to the floor.
Just as she settled in her seat, the door crashed open again. She squeaked and jumped.
“Does no one know how to enter a room quietly, for fuck’s sake?” Cash muttered.
The man who walked in stared around at them all in surprise.
“What are you all doing here?” He scowled as though it was a really big imposition that they were here.
He was huge, with wide shoulders and extremely tall.
His head was shaved bald, and he had a kind of menacing appearance that immediately made her lean against Cash.
“Butch, do you remember that I own the place?” Ink said dryly.
Butch suited him. He grunted.
“What are you doing here?” Ink asked.
“Needed a quiet place to think. Apartment to my left has a sick baby that cries all night, other side has a nympho who humps all night.”
“That’s more than I needed to know,” Ink said. “Now that you’re here, you might as well sit in. I might need you to work this job anyway.”
How much did it cost to hire these people to find her sisters? And maybe they didn’t even need to be found. She had no idea. She probably should have just gone back to the bar.
“Someone talk,” Ink said gruffly.
Addie hunched in on herself, feeling ridiculous because the words just wouldn’t come. Ink gave her a look, and his face seemed to soften. “Not angry at you, sweetheart. It’s just that if your sisters are missing, every minute counts.”
Oh, God. She hadn’t thought of that, and she’d wasted so much time.
To her surprise, it was Ralen who started to speak. He told them everything from the brawl, finding her, and going to the hotel.
“There was no sign of them at the hotel?” Brody asked.
“No, and that’s the really odd part,” Cash said. “When we got to the hotel room, we found it trashed.”
“Trashed?” Brody asked. “Why would somebody have trashed it?”
“Addie said that one of her sisters tends to keep the little card holder that the hotel keycard comes in,” Ralen explained. “We think that maybe someone found and used it.”
“Fuck,” Butch said. “That’s a stupid thing to do.”
Addie glared at him.
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, so you do have some fire.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Cash said in a deep, low voice.
There was a definite warning in there, and the two men glared at each other. Did they know each other?
If they did, they didn’t seem to be good friends. In fact, they seemed like they were heading into enemy territory.
When she looked at Ralen, he was glaring at Butch too.
Sheesh.
“Right, let’s just take things down a notch,” Ink said. “So we think someone found the keycard and went to the hotel room to trash it. They steal anything?”
Addie shook her head.
“No?” Ink gave her a look of surprise. “Nothing?”
“Maybe you didn’t have anything they wanted, and then they got angry and wrecked the place?” Brody asked.
“There was a little bit of jewelry,” Cash told them. “The laptop was locked up, but there were still things they could have taken. However, that’s not the strangest thing. There was a message on the mirror in the bathroom that said: Leave or Die.”
Ink sat back in his chair with his arms crossed over his wide chest. “Leave or die?”
Cash nodded.
“Why would someone leave a message like that?” Ink looked at Addie as he asked the question. “Brody, do we have an iPad that Addie can use to write?”
Brody nodded and left the room. This time, he managed not to hit his knee on the table.
Which was just as well, since she hated to think what the man watching on the camera would say.
“Addie, I know it’s strange that someone is watching, but he might actually be able to help,” Ink said.
He must have seen her looking around the room.
“If I feel like it,” the voice drawled. “Although this is keeping my interest. I do like a mystery.”
“You also have a soft spot for women in distress,” Ink said.
“You’ll take that back,” the voice said silkily. “I have no soft spots. If you say that again, I’ll show you all the soft spots that a knife can penetrate without killing you.”
Oh my God.
He didn’t really mean that, right? Well, Ink didn’t appear to be worried, so she decided she shouldn’t be either. People made empty threats all the time.
Brody returned with a tablet and handed it to her, along with the pen that went with it.
“Just write on it here,” he told her. “And when you press enter, it will say your words out loud.”
This would be better than trying to get an answer out through her inflamed throat. She was starting to think she’d damaged it with her screaming.
“I don’t know who the message is from.”
As she pressed enter, Batman’s voice came from the tablet.
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” Brody said as he tried to grab the tablet back. “I should’ve changed that to something more neutral.”
She shook her head and held on tight with a small smile.
“It’s all right. I think Addie likes the voice,” Cash told him.
“So do I,” said the mystery voice through the speaker. No one had said his name.
Brody sighed and nodded.
“But do you have an idea?” Ink asked. “It doesn’t seem like something a random thief would write.”
Addie froze. She didn’t know where to start or what to say.
“Maybe you could give us some information about your sisters,” Brody said. “And why you’re here in Billings. Maybe that will help.”
Right. But how to explain about Monroe and her husband? Or about what she’d seen in the parking lot? Was that really something she should tell them? It wasn’t anything they could help with anyway. And would she be putting them in danger? Maybe what she should be doing was going to the police.
But would they even believe her?
Her shoulders hunched again as she thought about what to do.
“Addie, maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” Ink said gently.
“We should tell you a little bit about ourselves. We’re more than just a security firm.
We’re a bit like a family here, and Cash is part of that family.
So is Ralen. Cash’s brother, Aidan, is a good friend of mine.
We want to help you, Addie. We don’t want anything to happen to your sisters.
You can tell us anything, and then we’re going to do whatever we have to in order to keep you all safe. ”
“Why?” she asked in Batman’s voice. “I don’t even know if I can afford your fees.”
“We can work that part out,” Ink told her. “You don’t need to worry about the money. When it’s a woman in trouble, we often do a heavy discount, especially since you’re friends with someone in the family.”
Friends? She wouldn’t quite call herself friends with Cash.
No, you want to be something far more with him.
She hoped that didn’t show on her face, because that would be highly embarrassing.
Cash grasped hold of her chin, turning her to face him. “You need to tell us the truth about what is going on, Addie. So we know how to help you. Because Ralen and I aren’t going anywhere, are we?”
“Nope. You’re the most interesting thing to happen to us in, oh, about seven days,” Ralen told her with a grin.
She let out a surprised bark of laughter at his words, and the other man smiled at her with a sassy wink.
Why couldn’t she be attracted to him? Although she had the feeling that Ralen would run circles around her.
Addie nodded. She was going to have to trust them. So far, Cash and Ralen hadn’t led her astray.