“We can’t lower our guard,” I said as Sloan reached the last picture of a man walking along the dock before boarding the ship.
The current situation had too many players, especially since Cyrus returned to Pelican Bay with a previously unknown woman. Her story and how she ended up on the ship fit together pretty conveniently.
Too conveniently if you asked me.
Our background check returned nothing abnormal, but a few pieces of this puzzle were still missing. I didn’t trust her yet.
Colt ran in, slamming the door against the wall as he pushed it open. “Boss,” he said. His expression gave a warning I wouldn’t like what he was going to tell me.
“Yeah,” I replied, dropping my grin. “Any word on the Kensington situation?”
He shook his head and walked further into the room. “Not yet, sir. Everything is calm. Cyrus just left his girl at the bed-and-breakfast. This is about Cassandra.”
I didn’t like the sound of her name on his lips and the fact he rushed into the room to tell me. My breath froze as I worried one wrong movement would bring the world crashing around me. My blood ran cold and then as quickly as everything paused, it raced back at full speed.
“Tell me.”
Fuck me. Why hadn’t Colt led with that information? He should walk into the room and say I have news on Cassandra.
“Well,” he said, fumbling over his words and looking as if once he said what he needed to, I was going to take it badly but he wasn’t sure how to lighten the blow. “I’m not sure. It could be nothing.”
“Spit it out, man.”
I just wanted to hear what he had to say and then I’d be ready to run. But I needed to know which direction to head before I made a move.
“I’ve been watching the cameras in town. She and Vonnie drove out of Pelican Bay a little over an hour ago in Cassandra’s car. And…”
“Wait,” I said, cutting him off. “Why didn’t anyone tell me my woman left with Vonnie?” I wasn’t tracking Cassandra the way Ridge kept eyes on Tabitha, but that didn’t mean if she left with one of the worst offenders in Maine, I didn’t want to know about it.
Anytime she was with a bakery girl, I wanted to know.
Colt shook his head and crossed his arms as if he was getting ready for a confrontation. “You said you only wanted to be interrupted for emergencies.” The sternness in his voice reminded me he wouldn’t let me berate him for something I’d clearly said.
This trait made Ridge’s men great at their jobs but also assholes to work with.
“My woman leaving with Vonnie Vines is an emergency.”
Colt rolled his eyes and tipped his head back. “She’s only a twenty-one-year-old woman. How much trouble can they cause?”
He hadn’t been in Pelican Bay long enough to understand the stupidity of his words. Age had nothing to do with it. “She’s a bakery girl. That’s the important part.”
Then the reality of what I’d said hit me and I went completely still again. “What happened from then until now that you interrupted us, but you didn’t think it was important two hours ago?”
He dashed in here as if the building was on fire, and he needed to tell me immediately. I wasted precious minutes arguing with him. If something happened to Cassandra in that time, and it was my fault I wasn’t there to rescue her, I’d go berserk. It was one thing to lose her when she started a life somewhere else, but I refused to live without her if something horrible happened and it wasn’t her choice to leave.
Colt’s eyes grew wide as if he silently said it’s damn time you figured it out. “Vonnie’s cell phone stopped moving about an hour and a half north of here. I wasn’t worried, but we just lost her signal.”
“Okay, give me everything on the place her phone was last.” Never again would I regret Ridge putting GPS on the cell phones of the bakery girls. If the women ever found out, there’d be hell to pay, but it saved their asses more than they realized.
“I ran a few reports and researched the last known location.”
“And?” I said, trying to get him to hurry. He was purposely drawing out the information to annoy me.
He swallowed hard. “The home belongs to a known drug runner. He’s been caught smuggling cocaine between the US and Canada twice in the last five years. He just got out of prison six months ago. Vonnie’s cell phone dinged close to his preferred hideout.”
“Dammit,” I said and dropped my fist on the desk.
What in the hell were my woman and Vonnie doing an hour and a half north of Pelican Bay in a podunk town in northern Maine, consorting with a known drug dealer?
