I held up a hand, unable to take any new crises on board until I’d delivered my news. “Okay, but I have to tell you. Knox is awake. He seems... mostly okay? The doctors are with him now, running tests and stuff.”
Gage blinked, opened his mouth, and blinked again.
“Oh. That’s... that’s great news. The best, actually.” He took a deep breath and let it gust out, although it did nothing to ease the tense line of his shoulders. “See? I knew he’d be all right.”
I nodded, feeling like someone standing beneath an overhanging boulder on a narrow mountain trail. “Yeah. It’s fantastic news. I’m really happy for you all.” I braced myself. “So, what’s this ‘big problem’ you mentioned?”
Gage’s look of profound relief twisted back into worry. And... guilt?
“I may have... um... let Jez get away,” he said.
The words took a second to penetrate. “What?”
I stared at the sheepish alpha, who rubbed a hand restlessly over the back of his neck like a schoolboy dragged in front of the principal. How was I supposed to feel about this? Alarmed? Relieved?
“But she was locked in the attic,” I said.
Gage’s hand dropped to hang limply at his side. “There was a storm. She was scared. I couldn’t leave her up there all alone.”
Okay. There was probably a totally rational reason why he was half-dressed and his fly was unzipped. And besides, this was none of my business, even if it involved someone I’d once thought was my closest friend. The important part was that Jez was gone.
“Are you sure she’s not hiding somewhere in the house?” I asked.
Gage seemed to shake himself back to the present. “The front door was unlocked when I opened it just now,” he said. Then he hesitated. “But you’re right, we should search to be sure.”
He stepped back, inviting me in. Then he seemed to realize what state he was in, and two high spots of color heated his pale features as he quickly zipped and buttoned his pants closed. I jerked my attention away, staring at the opposite wall as my ears burned.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sorry. Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but why didn’t you just call me from the hospital instead of driving all the way out here?”
“I did,” I told him. “Called you, called Heath... no one answered, so I left voicemails. When no one called me back, I started to worry.””
His face, which had been bloodless before, went positively gray.
“Shit,” he said, and went running down the hall toward the main stairs with way more speed than someone that big should have possessed.
Unsure what else to do, I followed him, puffing a bit by the time we reached what I assumed was his bedroom. He rushed over to the bedside table, shoving around books and other miscellaneous odds and ends before coming up with a worn leather wallet. He opened it up and rifled through the contents before straightening.
“She took my phone. Some money, too.” He sounded completely shellshocked.
“So, she’s probably not hiding in the house, then,” I concluded. “Your phone’s locked though, right?” When he didn’t immediately reply, I asked again. “Right?”
Another pause.
“It never reads my face or fingerprint on the first try, and I hate having to enter a code every time.” The words were a quiet mumble.
I opened my mouth to read him the riot act, only to catch myself just in time. It hardly mattered at this point. “Please tell me you know your cloud account login,” I said instead.
“Yeah, of course.” He sounded a bit defensive.
That was something, at least.
“Okay.” I pulled out my phone, wincing at the red battery warning. “Here, I need to plug into your charger. There’s a phone finder app; I think it’ll let me look for yours if you use it to log in to your account.”
I didn’t stop to second-guess whether I should be helping Gage find Jez, or silently cheering that she’d gotten away. The truth was, she’d nearly killed Knox... even if she’d been tricked into doing it. And I knew all too well how effectively she could disappear, if left to her own devices.
Knox deserved the chance to make his own decision about what to do with her, and that wouldn’t happen if she vanished into Chicago’s underworld like she had after she’d killed my stepdad.
I plugged in my phone and pulled up the app, scrolling down to the ‘help a friend’ option and tapping it. Gage crowded close, taking the phone when I handed it to him and painstakingly typing in his account information. I supposed with fingers as big and thick as his, it probablywasa pain in the ass to type on a phone screen.
