Khan (Bowen Boys, #2)(48)

“She contacted them.”

Caitlynne nodded.

“So she is alive to do that. Was there…what else?”

“A stolen car was reported. On Milner Street. When the police arrived, they hadn’t put the two incidents together yet and ran the plates on every car there. Luckily, there were only nine. None had been reported stolen, but Walker’s car came up and that he was related to me. They called my office first and informed me what was going on. They also told me they found something in the front seat.”

She handed him the necklace. Khan gripped it in his hand and looked up at Dylan when he touched his shoulder. He handed it to him when he’d asked. His brother held it tightly.

“She’s afraid, terrified. She left this so that he wouldn’t touch it. She is hoping that when this is over, you will put it back on her and love her.” Dylan handed him the necklace. “If the emotion is really strong, I can get it. She is very frightened, but she’s really pissed too. She isn’t going to go down easy.”

Khan didn’t even ask. He knew that his brother had secrets that he would share when he wanted to. He thanked him and looked at Caitlynne. She looked grim.

“She’ll get us to her. No matter how she has to do it. We’ll find her. She managed to get us this far, she’ll get us to her.”

He believed it too. Khan didn’t leave the kitchen. There was a phone there, and this room led out of the house and was closest to the garage. When she contacted someone else, he was going to be ready to go. He’d already taken Caitlynne’s truck keys. He was going to be prepared when he went to get her.

Agents came in and out all afternoon. He watched them quietly and tried not to glare at them. He’d been told by his mother that he was scaring them. He had the look of a man posed on the edge. He felt that way too. The last time he’d stood up when one of them were in the room, the man actually put his hand on his gun. It might have been funny if he wasn’t so afraid.

It was four hours later when he received a phone call. The cook had answered the phone and handed it to him without saying anything. He asked if it was Monica, and the man shook his head. He said hello, and the man at the other end sounded confused.

“I’m at the Wilkinson Hotel. I’m not real sure why you want to know that, but I just called to let you know.” Khan asked him who he was. “Tim Daily. Do I know you?”

Khan hung up on him. Some idiot trying to get something from his family, no doubt, or had read about the wedding in the paper. He was just sitting back down when the phone rang again. The cook handed it to him again.

“Hey, I don’t think I know you, but I’m staying at the Wilkinson Hotel. Out off Walden Road. You know where that’s at?”

Khan hung up. He heard the phone ring before he stepped away and reached for it before the cook could. He didn’t have time for this shit. Dylan walked in just as he blasted the man.

“Look, buddy, I don’t give a shit where you are or where you work. We need this line open for important calls.” He slammed the phone down and looked at the cook. “If anyone else calls that line, tell them we’re using it for the police. Maybe that’ll stop them.”

“Did Monica ever use this phone?”

Khan looked at his brother and shrugged. He asked the cook the same question.

“Yes. She wanted to make a few phone calls this morning to go and get her dry cleaning.” The cook frowned. “That number is private. No one else has it but the staff, and I guess Miss Monica.”

The phone rang again. This time Khan reached for it with a shaky hand. When he said hello this time, he had a pen and paper shoved at him from Dylan. The person at the other end wanted to speak to Bill, the cook. He took it.

It was about an order he’d placed. He hurried through the conversation and hung up. He stepped back when Khan asked him too. The phone rang twice more, but it was for the staff. He looked at the agent when he walked in.

“I think she’s at the Wilkinson. There have been several calls of people telling us that they’re there. I don’t know if she’s actually there, but she might be.”

The man nodded and walked out. Caitlynne walked back in a minute later.

“I think she’s there. Can we go and get her?”

“Not yet. My men are checking to see if someone fitting the description has checked in with a woman. We can’t go in and close the place down without all our Ts crossed.” An hour later, they said that no one had checked in under the name of Barr and that no one had come in with a woman in the past three days.

Khan slumped in the chair. “It has to be her. Why would those people call and tell us where they were if not for her asking them to?” Caitlynne said she didn’t know. “I have to have her back, Caitlynne. She’s all I have in the world.”

“We’ll get her. When someone calls again, I want you to pump them for everything they know. Maybe she told them something else or they got the name wrong. I don’t think so, but she’s not there.”

He nodded. He knew she was, and short of going door to door of the hotel, there was nothing really he could do. He watched the phone, and every time it rang, everyone in the room tensed up. He was ready to go out and find her himself until Dylan came in the room again and sat down. Each of them came to sit with him each hour, and he wondered if when the time came, they’d be going with him to get her or try to stop him. He hoped it was the former because he didn’t want to have to kill them if it was the latter.