“Is Aria here?” I asked.
“She’s in the bedroom.”
I took a seat on the couch and Michael sat in a chair opposite me. I set my phone and box of Tic-Tacs on the coffee table and glanced at it one more time before giving Michael all my attention.
“Expecting someone?” he asked.
“My intel guy, Daniel. I sent him a text to see if there was anything new going on with Wade Sorenson. I haven’t heard back yet.”
Michael nodded. “I can’t believe you’re still eating those things. Don’t they rip your stomach up the way you eat them like they’re candy?”
“No. I have a strong stomach.” I paused and then got right down to it. “So, which boy is missing?”
“The middle one. Jensen. Aria said her mom was locked in the cellar with her youngest brother and sister while the two older boys were getting roughed up. Jensen got free and ran out. Wade went after him while the oldest boy stayed with their mother and the two youngest.”
Michael’s forehead wrinkled and his fists clenched with fury. He was beyond pissed off. Michael used to come to my house to escape his own nightmares at home. This was more than personal to him.
“We’ll find him, Michael. I’ll bring them back.”
“Three pilots will be on the jet along with one flight attendant,” he explained.
“Will she be hot?” I asked, partially kidding.
“Sawyer.”
“What? It’s a fucking long flight.”
“Don’t do that shit, man.” Michael sighed and rubbed his eyes with the pads of his thumb and middle finger. I backed off.
“I’m just kidding.” I drank more water. “So, three pilots and the flight attendant. What time do I leave?”
“It sounds like six in the morning tomorrow. You’ll fly to JFK, refuel there, and then fly straight to Stockholm. It should put you in Stockholm around 11:45 p.m. their time.”
I quickly did the math and determined Sweden was roughly six hours ahead of Eastern time and eight hours ahead of time here.
“I’m assuming I’ll wait until daylight hours to venture out to their home.”
“Yeah, to be on the safe side. I’m not too sure how out of place you’d look roaming the streets of Stockholm at midnight in the dead of winter. But remember, they have odd hours of daylight in the winter.”
Remember?I stared at him with an arched eyebrow, waiting for him to drop the details surrounding “remember.” He didn’t elaborate, so I turned my palm over and raised my thumb, forefinger, and middle finger in hopes of prompting him.
“Rememberwhat?” I finally asked.
“The daylight hours.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know that? I’ve never been there, and I’m not banging some Swede—”
“Hey! Watch it!” he warned.
“What? Well, what the fuck, Michael? You start off with telling me to remember the sunlight hours as if I somehow would have this information.”
“I thought it was common knowledge.”
“Common knowledge?” I huffed out a laugh and shook my head. “You and I went to the same schools and had the same classes. I don’t recall learning about time zones and daylight hours in the Baltic region.” Things were unnecessarily getting heated. I leaned my head back on the cushion and stared at the ceiling, reminding myself that Michael was stressed and tired.
“Probably because you were getting hand jobs in the back of the class and daydreaming of which teacher to bang.”
He wasn’t wrong. I lifted my head off the cushion, and when we made eye contact, both of us burst into laughter. I sat up all the way, reached for my phone, and quickly searched for the hours of daylight in Stockholm.Okay… Sunrise around eight-thirty in the morning. Sunset around three-thirty in the afternoon. About seven fucking hours.
