The Protector (Game of Chance, #1)(17)

Opening the first drawer, all Carlise saw were boxers.

Blushing, she shut the drawer. It was silly to be embarrassed about seeing his underwear. He’d been walking around in nothing but boxers and a T-shirt for the last two days. Not to mention, she’d been plastered against said boxers while sleeping.

She opened another drawer—socks. Then another. Bingo. There was a phone nestled among what looked like shorts, and she picked it up. It wasn’t like any phone she’d ever seen. It looked like something she recognized from pictures of phones in the nineties. The big, bulky things people used before cell phones became more mainstream.

For a moment, Carlise considered ignoring the ringing, now that she knew it wasn’t some type of alarm. Answering Riggs’s phone seemed even more wrong than going through his drawers. But the caller was clearly insistent. He or she had called back three times, and she had a feeling they weren’t going to stop until someone answered.

Looking over at the bed, she thought about waking Riggs so he could talk to whoever was calling, but he was still out of it. The noise hadn’t even made him stir.

Making her decision, Carlise clicked on the green button on the front and brought it up to her ear. “Hello?”

There was a tense pause before a very pissed-off-sounding man said, “Who the hell is this and where’s Chappy? You better put him on the phone in two seconds or there’s gonna be a shitload of trouble.”

Swallowing hard at the anger in the man’s voice and realizing her entire body had tensed as if preparing to protect itself, Carlise couldn’t speak for a moment.

“I’m serious. Who are you, and why are you answering Chappy’s phone? Where is he?”

Carlise frowned. “Who’s Chappy?” she blurted.

“Who’s Chappy?” the man echoed. “Shit. I’ll ask again. Who the hell are you, and why do you have my friend’s phone?”

“I’m Carlise. Is your friend Riggs?”

There was yet another beat of silence on the other end of the line before the man asked, “Riggs?”

“Yeah. That’s what he told me his name was.”

“Wow. Okay. No one calls him that. But you still haven’t said what you’re doing there and why you’re answering the phone instead of him.”

“He’s sick. Or he was. He’s getting better now,” Carlise told the mystery man. The longer they spoke, the less her voice shook. She wasn’t sure, but considering the man was so concerned about Riggs, it made her think he might be one of the three guys Riggs had been calling for when he was delirious.

“He’s sick? What’s wrong with him?”

“He had a fever for a few days. But it finally broke just this afternoon. Are you . . . Cal, Bob, or JJ?” she asked hesitatingly.

“JJ. How’d you know my name? Or the others?”

“Riggs was calling for you. During his fever, he had nightmares. He’d wake up and cry out, wanting to make sure you were safe. I just assumed . . .”

“Put him on the phone,” the man ordered.

“Um . . . ,” Carlise hedged, looking at the bed where Riggs was sleeping. His mouth was open slightly and his limbs were starfished, so he took up nearly the entire mattress.

“I mean it. Put him on right now, or I’m coming up there—with Cal and Bob—and we’ll find out firsthand who the hell you are and what you’ve done to our friend.”

“I haven’t done anything to him,” Carlise protested. “He’s fine. Well, he will be now, I think. And it’s still snowing.”

“I don’t care if there’s an alien invasion and the Earth is burning from an apocalypse. If you’ve hurt Chappy, or done anything to incapacitate him, there’s nowhere you can hide. We’ll fucking find you. Do you hear me?”

Damn. This guy was intense! Despite his threats, a tendril of jealousy swam through Carlise’s veins. To have someone that loyal, that concerned about her well-being, wasn’t a concept she was familiar with.

Yes, her mom loved her, but she was fairly meek when it came to speaking her mind or sticking up for herself and others. Of course, the abuse she’d suffered for years had made her that way. Still, there’d been many times in her life when Carlise had wished her mom was more assertive.

Her best friend, Susie, was someone Carlise could count on. She’d been her rock ever since the stuff with Tommy had begun . . . but she still couldn’t imagine her being as forceful as JJ in wanting to talk to his friend.

“He’s sleeping,” she told the man as she stepped toward the bed. “But I’ll try to wake him up.”

“There’d better not be any try about it,” the man said under his breath.

“Riggs?” Carlise said as she sat on the mattress.

The second her fingers touched his shoulder, Riggs moved, rolling until he’d thrown his arm over her lap, one of his legs over hers, and buried his face against her hip, as he’d done a few times in the last couple of days.

As much as she loved how he immediately turned to her, she really needed him to wake up and talk to his friend. She had no doubt JJ would somehow make his way up to the cabin if he needed to, if only to make sure Riggs wasn’t being held hostage and tortured.

“Riggs!” she said, louder this time, trying to rouse him.