Chapter Three Reed #2
A guy? Before she’d bailed after kicking back a few drinks with me on Saturday, she mentioned she had to go out of town on Tuesday, but she left out the location and the with-a-dude part.
I set a hand atop my chest as my heart tried to break free. What. The. Actual. Hell? Why did that response feel like . . . jealousy? I was practically allergic to her. That’s how I acted around her, especially whenever she broke into my house. She made my skin itch. Crawl. Eyes burn. All of it.
My fingers curled into my palms as I tried to settle down the raging beats happening beneath my rib cage, but I couldn’t shake the image of Hollis in Italy with some rich dick Casanova.
Probably an Italian. Born and raised there, and I was only third-generation Italian, so that didn’t count if she wanted to be with—
I had to put the brakes on those thoughts. Pronto.
Nope, I should be happy for her. She could finally leave me the hell alone if she connected with someone. He was probably in her league of absurdly rich, too.
Good. Great. Fucking perfect. This is what I want. Only, my chest tightened. “Well, uh, if it’s not her, then who the hell is it?”
The aircraft kicked up a cloud of debris while setting down. A man jumped out before the rotors even slowed. He was clearly either trained in the art of not giving a fuck or knew how to expertly leave a running helicopter. He also didn’t appear bothered by the heat in his all-black clothes.
“Anyone recognize him?” Trevor motioned for Eden to come closer. “I assume he’s from the State Department or works for the secretary.”
Eden rejoined us, slipping her phone into her crossbody bag.
“No clue who he is,” I said as the man walked our way like he owned both the air and the grass beneath his shoes.
When he stopped a few feet in front of us, just out of arm’s reach, he removed his shades. “I’m Celeste’s brother, Gideon.”
I hadn’t seen photos of her family, but I knew she had siblings. And now it made sense why the helo bothered me. Wrong sibling inside it. Same reaction, though.
“What are you doing here?” Audrey asked him. “How’d you know we’d be at the park?”
“I was planning on walking to your house. Couldn’t land in your front yard, now, could I?” Gideon slipped his aviators back on. “I’m here about Celeste.”
“She prefers Hollis now,” Audrey corrected him. “And what about her?”
“Well, she’s been Celeste to me all her life, but sure, fine.” He shook his head. “When was the last time you spoke, and what’d you talk about?”
“Why?” I asked as Chase went to his knees, latching on to Ranger.
“My sister went to Rome on Tuesday.”
“Right. For a guy,” Audrey responded before Gideon could continue.
Gideon’s jaw locked tight. “What guy?”
So, that’s news to you, too?
“I don’t have a name for you because she didn’t give me one. But she said they planned to hang out in Rome. Maybe hit the Amalfi Coast after that.” She removed her phone from her back pocket and handed it to Gideon. “She hasn’t texted since she landed in Italy.”
I did my best to remain calm for Chase, but my pulse was flying at the fact Hollis’s brother wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t a problem.
My only saving grace? Her brother gave off asshole vibes, so she had more than likely ditched him for some reason and was fine.
“Why didn’t you hack her phone, read her messages that way? ”
“Her messages were digitally scrubbed.”
She could easily do that herself. I held back that forced optimism and instead uttered a backhanded compliment. “Thought your brother Julian was good at recovering the unrecoverable?”
“Not everything can be salvaged. When some things die”—he briefly looked at me as if sending a message of some kind—“they actually stay that way.”
“Isn’t that how all things are supposed to stay?” Chase asked, his voice innocent.
You shouldn’t be listening to any of this.
“You’re right.” Gideon surprisingly managed to soften his tone for Chase’s sake. “As for your texts, your phones are protected by the DOD, so for now, we’ve refrained from hacking them.” He handed Audrey back her phone. “This isn’t helpful.”
“Please tell me she’s ignoring your calls and texts because you pissed her off, and she deleted her messages knowing your hacker brother would’ve read them.
And that’s why you’re coming to me instead of talking to Hollis yourself.
” Audrey switched from rock steady to slightly panicky, and I was close to joining her there.
Every muscle in my body remained tense as I waited for his answer, and the grim facial expression as he shook his head sent me back a step.
“Her tracker went offline at zero one hundred Italian time. It’s proprietary tech our family uses.”
I did the math, and with the six-hour time difference, that had to have been about fourteen hours ago.
Acid pushed up into my chest. Nope, she’s fine.
She has to be. Probably shut it down herself.
My normal cup-is-half-empty mentality was taking a back seat with Hollis’s life on the line.
No other option. I couldn’t stand around a park feeling helpless if she was in danger.
“Mommy, is Auntie Hollis okay?” Chase broke the eerie quiet that’d been sitting between us as we worked to grasp what Gideon was suggesting. The kid had been through enough this year. He deserved a break.
Alex shifted to the side so Trevor could get to his son, and Trevor took a knee next to Chase and rested a hand on his shoulder, whispering something in his ear.
I waited impatiently for Gideon to continue. What I didn’t expect was for him to begin unbuttoning his black dress shirt.
He pulled the material back, revealing a tattoo in the shape of a shield with four quadrants, a different image in each section. A crucifix was at the top of it, and a phrase I couldn’t translate was beneath it.