Mystery Man (Dream Man #1)(130)

I hit send and stood on the sidewalk waiting. People might have passed but I didn’t notice. I just stood there staring at my phone.

Then it chirped.

I flipped it open.

She’s at 83 Bannock. You get her, text. That’s the deal.

Shit! How did I get my sister out of an FBI safe house?

Shit!

My phone chirped again and I looked down at it.

Call off Chaos or you’ll get a body to bury.

I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them, flipped my phone shut, flipped my phone open and headed to my car as I called Tack.

Tracy would find her way home. She’d be pissed but she’d find her way home. And that home wouldn’t be a penitentiary which was where I was headed.

If I was lucky.

I got Tack’s voicemail, left a message that called him off, flipped my phone shut, got in my car and headed to 83 Bannock.

* * * * *

I sat in my car on Bannock two houses down from 83, staring at it and thinking it was a rather nice house and didn’t look like a safe house at all. Not, of course, that I knew what safe houses looked like but still.

I flipped my phone open and I went to my texts.

I typed in, Before I do this, I want proof Hawk’s all right. No pictures. I want to hear his voice.

Then I hit send.

I sat again in suspended time as I stared at my phone.

It rang, unknown caller, I sucked in breath, flipped it open and put the phone to my ear.

“Hello,” I whispered.

“Baby, do not do this shit,” Hawk growled in my ear and my eyes filled with tears as they closed.

“I’m doing it, Cabe,” I whispered, the tears sliding down my cheeks.

“Do not do it, Gwen.”

“I’m drowning,” I was still whispering.

“Gwen –”

“In you and I don’t want to come up for air.”

“Fuck. Baby –”

I heard the phone jostle then a man told me, “Do it. Text.”

Then I got dead air.

My head hit the steering wheel but I didn’t feel it or see it. My eyes were still closed and tears were streaming down my face.

Baby.

That was burned on my brain too.

Baby.

“Oh God,” I whispered, opened my eyes and stared at my thighs. “If I pull this off, Ginger, please, please forgive me.”

My breath hitched and it did it painfully, burning my throat.

Baby, do not do this shit.

Another sob tore from my throat.

Do not do it, Gwen.

My hands went to the steering wheel and held on.

Do not do it…

My fingers were curled around the steering wheel but I didn’t feel the wheel, I felt fingers curled around mine, my hand was little and they engulfed mine. In my mind, I looked up and saw Meredith with her wedding veil over her face smiling down at me.

Her fingers squeezed mine, warm and tight.

I felt my tears wet on my jeans.

Shit. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t turn over my sister, my Dad and Meredith’s daughter for my man. I couldn’t do it.

I let the steering wheel go and covered my face with my hands as the sobs burned up my throat, so powerful, they shook my shoulders.

“Baby,” I cried into my hands that picture in the Polaroid all I could see against my closed eyelids. “Oh God, baby,” I whispered as my shoulders heaved.

The passenger door flew open, my back shot straight, my head turned and through my tears I stared in stunned shock as Ginger jumped into the passenger seat.

“What the –?” I breathed.

“Drive!” she shouted.

“What?” I asked.

“Drive, bitch, drive!” she screamed.

I blinked then straightened, turned the key in the ignition and shot from the curb.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Commando Woman Lesson One

“Not my gig, Gwennie, but those shoes are hot,” Ginger said through a mouth full of Mustard’s Last Stand, Vienna beef, Chicago style, chili-cheese hotdog.

Mustard’s Last Stand had always been Ginger’s favorite and that was where she wanted to go after escaping her protective custody safe house when she saw my car on the street with me sitting in it having a mental collapse. So I headed to University Boulevard, bought her a chili-cheese dog and then we drove to the Target parking lot on Colorado Boulevard so she could eat it. The whole time to and from, Ginger checked for a tail and declared we didn’t have one.

I figured she would know so at least that was a relief.

She had her dog in one hand, the Polaroid of me and Hawk in the other one and she was studying it.

“Ginger, we need a plan,” I told her. “And I think the best plan we have is taking you straight to the police station. You can say you got a craving for Mustard’s and I’ll say I was just in the neighborhood having my annual nervous breakdown.”

Her eyes slid to me and, again with her mouth full, she asked, “Are you high?”

Okay, clearly that wasn’t a choice.

“How about I rent you a car, get you some money, we go to my house and get you some clothes and then you drive to Canada,” I suggested.

“Gwen, your clothes…” she trailed off and shook her head.

“Okay, then we’ll go to the nearest biker babe and stripper shops and we’ll stock you up.”