“Stop, please. Uncle, uncle!” I cried, my stomach hurting from laughing and trying to twist away from him.
“Nope. Not the right answer,” he said, continuing to torment me.
“Jake is the best boyfriend ever,” I tried, breathless as I said it.
“Getting warmer.”
“Best looking?”
“Not bad.”
“Best lover!”
“Hmmm, that’ll do.” He stopped tickling me, grinning as I attempted to catch my breath. “See if you laugh the next time you miss out on a life-altering orgasm.”
I grinned at his proclamation, knowing he could live up to his own hype. “I’m going to hold you to it, good looking.” I gave him a wink, and darted into his closet to steal clothes. After I got dressed, I went into the bathroom to drag a brush through my tangled hair.
I whistled when I saw Jake, a towel wrapped around his waist as he shaved over the sink. Didn’t matter that I’d seen him shirtless a few minutes earlier, there was something about a man wearing nothing but a towel that was as sexy as hell. He cut a sideways glance at me, never missing a stroke as the side of his mouth rose in a smirk.
Brushing only served to increase the wild waves in my hair, so I finally gave up, pulling the mass into a high ponytail and then swiped his chap stick across my lips. He rinsed his face, and tapped my hand before I could leave the bathroom. I gazed at him questioningly. It would be a miracle, if I wasn’t late already. He smiled, pressed a kiss into my wrist and gestured to the granola bar and water he must have grabbed for me.
“Breakfast.”
I smiled happily, and brushed a kiss against his smooth cheek.
“Best boyfriend ever.”
I wound up being late for class, but luck was on my side, since the professor was even later. When class let out, Jules and Carly were both waiting outside the door, to my surprise.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I joked, falling in between them. They traded a mischievous look, alerting me to the fact they were conspiring without me. It was an odd realization. They were starting to become friends outside of their friendship with me. I smothered the tiny flare of jealousy I felt, and looped my arms in theirs. “Obviously, y’all are up to something. I’m almost afraid to ask what.”
“Someone’s birthday is coming up,” Carly told me.
“It’s not mine,” I replied with a grin. “It’s also not Jake’s or Jules or yours. So that leaves Danny and Connor. Wait. Why do I not know when Connor’s birthday is?”
“Cause, he absolutely hates to celebrate it, and refuses to tell anyone when it is. But …”
“We figured you would know.”
“But I don’t.”
They gave me pitying looks, and it dawned on me.
“It’s early. What can I say ... I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Oooohhh, spill.” Carly grinned, and Jules held up a hand. “Wait a minute, this is my brother. I don’t want to know.”
I laughed at them. “Trust me, I wish. Jake had to go out on a call late, and then I couldn’t sleep this morning.”
“Oh. That’s disappointing,” Carly muttered. “How can I live vicariously through you, if you don’t do anything worth hearing about?”
“I don’t know. You and Danny boy seemed pretty tight last night,” Jules chimed in, arching an eyebrow.
Carly flushed and ducked behind her unruly mass of hair. I took pity on her and distracted Jules with my earlier question I hadn’t got to ask.
“Why does Connor hate celebrating his birthday?”
“We don’t know.”
“Hmm, a mystery.”
“Not for long.”
They giggled, and I hoped whatever reason Connor had for not celebrating his birthday wasn’t too terrible, because I didn’t want to have to be the one to ruin their fun.
“Come on, let’s get breakfast.”
“I had a granola bar already.”
“Ha, that’s not a sufficient breakfast.”
“Nope. But you know what is?”
I sighed, seeing the answer and admitting defeat.
“Cinnamon rolls!”
“To the Bakery, we go.”
A few minutes later, we were squished together in a booth, with giant cinnamon rolls, smothered in icing, sitting in front of us.
“That sticky bun looked good.”
“Bite your tongue. We are not sticky bun girls.”
“We could branch out, try new things.”
They both gave me horrified looks, so I threw my hands up. “Or not. We’ll just eat cinnamon rolls.” They both nodded, satisfied, and I muttered under my breath, “Jake would let me eat a sticky bun.”
“What did you say?” Jules glared at me suspiciously, and I leaned back.
“Nothing.”
“When is Connor’s birthday?” Carly said around a mouthful of pastry. “This is really good, by the way.”
“February twenty-eighth.”
“That’s Tuesday! We almost missed it.”
“Wait. Tuesday? Like Fat Tuesday?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Oh my God, this will be awesome. We can do a whole Mardi Gras themed birthday party. Beads, King Cake. Jules, you can even lift your shirt up for a coconut.” Carly started rattling off options excitedly.
“Carly! I’m not flashing anybody for anything.”
“Poor Connor.” My comment didn’t go over well, as Jules swatted me.
“Poor Connor, my ass,” she muttered, causing me to laugh as I started unraveling my cinnamon roll.
“Why must you do that?” Jules asked, watching me deconstruct the roll to eat it. I shrugged, not having an answer.
“She’s always eaten them that way,” Carly told her, cutting up her roll.
“Jeez, do none of you know how to eat a cinnamon roll?”
“I’m going to go with that’s a rhetorical question.” We watched Jules pick up her roll and take a bite. It was impressive, considering the roll was the size of her head.
“Okay, that was harder than I thought,” she admitted, setting it back down, while trying to swallow the bite she’d taken.
“Solid nine.”
“Absolutely. It was impressive, just seeing it. Connor doesn’t know what he has in you.”
She shook her head at us, but couldn’t stop her smile.
“Okay, so we know when his birthday is, and we have a great theme, because it’s how perfect? Right?”
Jules nodded, but stopped as I shook my head. Carly’s question had revealed why Connor didn’t celebrate his birthday.
“Connor will be pissed, if we celebrate his birthday with a King Cake,” I told them with a sympathetic smile.
“Why does Connor hate celebrating his birthday?” Jules asked, with a resigned look.
“Because it’s always King Cakes and Mardi Gras every year, even when his birthday doesn’t fall on Mardi Gras. By the way, he despises King Cake, so I’d avoid that at all costs.”
“But …. Dang it,” Carly frowned, stabbing a bite of her cinnamon roll and shoving it in her mouth. I tore off another piece as I let them stew over this new knowledge.
“Maybe we should go classic. Something simple,” I offered, when the silence had dragged on for an uncomfortably long time.
“Yes.”
“Great.”
They jumped on the suggestion as soon as I said it, discussing balloons, chocolate or white cake, and if he’d play pin the tail on the donkey.
“Yes, chocolate, and hell no. Are you kidding me?” I answered proudly. They both gave me exasperated looks and sighed. “What? Oh, you weren’t asking me were you? Well, he’s not gonna play pin the tail on the donkey. Maybe, pin the nipple piercing on the model.”
We all laughed, and Jules stood up, gasping with laugher.
“I have to pee. You have laughed the pee right out of me.”
This pushed us further over the edge, and I wiped tears from my eyes as Carly snorted. This
set me off again, but I tried to control myself, needing to ask Carly a favor before Jules came back.
“Carly. Carly!”
“What?” She popped the last of her cinnamon roll in her mouth, and gazed at me with an expectant look.
“I need you to ask Jules what the perfect proposal is.” This caused her to choke, and I pounded her on the back as she reached for her coffee.
“Well, okay. Connor’s proposing?” She peered at me with wide eyes. “It is Connor, right? Like, it’s not Jake. But no, why would you want to know what Jules’ perfect proposal would be? It’d be yours, so it must be Connor.” She gasped. “Unless there’s someone else? Is Jules cheating on Connor?”
I stared at her with my mouth open.
“Where? Just where does this shit come from? Nobody is cheating. Jake is NOT proposing and yes, it’s Connor.”
“Oh, well why do I need to ask? Why don’t you ask her?”
“Cause, she’ll absolutely suspect me if I ask. I need you to ask when I get up to go the bathroom. I’ll go around the corner and eavesdrop.”
“Your ability will work like that?” she asked curiously, and I saw the answer.
“Yes. So long as I can hear the question, I’ll see the answer.”
“What would Jules perfect proposal be?” Carly asked, with an inquiring look. I shook my head, not seeing anything.
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“Worth a shot,” Carly replied with a shrug. I nodded, always curious about the limits of my ability. Jules walked back over, and I hopped up.
“My turn.”
I stepped around the corner and waited. It took a few minutes, but Carly finally got the conversation around to weddings and proposals.
“I think I’d want to be proposed to under the stars,” Carly said dreamily, the man proposing looking quite a bit like Danny, if I wasn’t mistaken. “What about you, Jules? What’s the perfect proposal for you?” Jules glanced down, and Carly’s eyes widened as I popped my head around the corner and nodded. I had what I needed. Connor, however, had his work cut out for him.
“Family. I want my family to be there,” Jules said as I walked back to them and slid in next to her.
“For what?” I asked, innocently.
“My proposal,” she answered, with a speculative look toward me. I gave her a guileless look, raising an eyebrow.
“Is someone proposing?”
“I don’t know. Are they?” Her eyes narrowed.
“Touché.”
“You’re not going to tell me are you?”
“Nope.”
We looked away from one another, breaking the stare-down we were locked in, only to meet Carly’s amused stare.
“That was entertaining.”
“And I’m going to be late for class,” I replied, jumping up and collecting my bag.
“Wait. I have to walk you,” Jules said, sliding out and hurrying to catch up.
“Then walk fast.”
Chapter Twelve
My phone buzzed with an incoming text message from a number I didn’t recognize. When I opened it, I knew immediately it was from Wade. It was a picture of a sketch he’d drawn quickly, the bold strokes almost appearing as if they had torn the page as he drew.
“I keep seeing this place. It has something to do with you.”
“I don’t recognize it,” I typed back and then looked at the picture again. I expanded it, seeing what appeared to be a rundown shack, perched on stilts. Part of the shack was over the water, but I couldn’t tell if it was a bayou or the river. Something told me this was where they were keeping the girls, but there were thousands of places exactly like this one. It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack … unless you were able to answer any question.
“Do you know where it is?” he persisted, and I replied, “My ability doesn’t work over text message. No idea why. I’ll show my boyfriend. See if we can determine where this is.”
“Okay, be careful.”
I heeded his warning, glancing around my classroom, feeling unsettled, even as I stared at what might very possibly be the break we were looking for. I didn’t hear a word of the lecture, as I watched the clock, my foot tapping impatiently. I considered leaving in the middle of class, but decided it wouldn’t help matters. Connor or Jake would be outside the door waiting to escort me to lunch, once class ended. They would be able to ask me the all-important question, and hopefully it would lead us to the girls.
The second the clock hit the hour, I was out of my desk and jogging down the steps to the door. As soon as I stepped into the hall, I saw them. They were joking about something, standing by the window, completely oblivious to the college girls giving them flirtatious looks. The sun coming through the window gave Connor the appearance of having a halo, a misconception if ever I’d seen one. Jake caught sight of me first, a slow grin crossing his face as his eyes met mine. Relief trickled through me at seeing both of them. Maybe we could finally end the nightmare for those girls.
“Addie,” Connor called, spotting me. “You tell us who’s cooler. The Arrow or Flash?”
“Arrow,” I responded automatically, knowing Connor preferred the Flash. I thrust my phone in Jake’s face, causing him to shift back as he took it.
“Where is this?” He squinted at the picture, enlarging it. “What is this?”
“It’s a shack on the river, off Highway 9. Twenty miles from here as the crow flies,” I replied, knowing exactly where it was. It didn’t matter that I’d never been there, I could find it with my eyes closed.
“What’s there?” Connor asked, peering over Jake’s shoulder at the picture. Tears of relief filled my eyes as I saw them.
“The girls. They’re there.” I pointed at my phone, at the sketch Wade had drawn, knowing something was there and trusting I would be able to figure it out.
“Are you sure?” Jake gazed at me intently, his face serious, and I nodded, completely positive all three girls were still there.
“We need to get a team out there.”
“Is anyone guarding the girls?”
“Yes.” Two men in shadow paced outside the door. Jake took my elbow, guiding me as we stepped outside into the cold. They were headed back to the precinct, so they could pull together a team capable of extracting the girls.
“How many?”
“Four. No, six.” I focused, but the vision kept switching on me. It was difficult to tell if I was seeing the same people or different ones. Only two guarded the girls, but there were others.
“How many bad guys are there?” he clarified, understanding my struggle.
“Seven.” My answer was confident now. I didn’t know where they all were, but we could determine that with other questions.
“How many kidnapped girls are there?” Connor broke in.
“Five,” I replied.
“Five?” Their disbelief was layered with anger, as they realized there were more out there than we’d known about, perhaps taken from other towns and held here, until it was time to ship them.
“We don’t have time to waste. This is still technically Nash’s case, but we need to move on it.”
“How are we going to get the new captain to agree to authorize a hostage removal team? We know Addie, but what are we going to tell him? A tip? He’s gonna give us hell.”
Connor’s questions blurred together as I saw the answer.
“Leave him to me,” I managed to respond, grateful for Jake’s support as we walked.
“Addie …” I heard the warning, but shook my head.
“Trust me.”
I met his eyes, and he nodded, saying, “I do.”
“Okay then, let’s go rescue some girls.”
Jake turned on the lights and siren as we raced to the precinct. Connor made calls, letting them know to get a team ready. It took special equipment and training to move in on a known hostage situation, and these weren’t your typical hostages. They were guarded to keep them from escaping, but
could easily be killed, if the traffickers suspected they’d been made.
They’d move on to another town, kidnapping more girls to send to other cities, or even overseas, and we’d never capture them. We couldn’t allow that to happen. I’d felt the same terror those girls felt, and I wouldn’t rest, until someone paid for their pain.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His face was just as unpleasant now as it was the first time I’d seen him, but again the question was genuinely curious. I was beginning to think the captain had resting bitch face, and it was definitely alienating his men.
“We are coordinating a team. We have information telling us where the kidnapped girls are located. It’s well guarded, and we’ll need to be cautious moving in.”
“Where did you get this information? Shouldn’t Nash be coordinating?” A lightbulb went off with the captain’s question. It explained his constant reassigning of cases, a fact Jake and Connor had found insulting, on more than one occasion, as several of their cases had been taken from them.
“A reliable source, and I don’t know where Nash is, but we need to go. We don’t know when the girls will be moved.” Jake worked to control his aggravation, but it was apparent in the muscle twitching along his jaw. He hadn’t formed any type of relationship with the new captain, his feelings of betrayal spilling over from the previous captain, and the new captain wasn’t much for relationship-building either.
“Who is the reliable source? If a move is being made on Nash’s case, he needs to be involved.” He was suspicious of the source, not wanting the department to look foolish, if the source—i.e. me—was wrong. The previous captain had shaken the community’s faith in the police department, and the new captain wanted to improve people’s perception.
“What difference does it make? Trust me to know the source is good, and we can’t afford to wait on Nash. Are you going to authorize or not?” Jake was breathing heavily, his normally calm demeanor gone as Connor and half the department watched us, their eyes shifting from one to another. The showdown had finally happened, and it couldn’t be at a worse time. I could see the captain’s answer, and I knew there would be no coming back if he spoke the words aloud.
Hidden Lies (The Hidden Series Book 2) Page 12
