She jumped to her feet and started to attack him. The first blow landed on his ear and Ethan saw stars, but he managed to get catch her hands before she got another one in.
“My brother is in danger and you’re talking about my legs!” She was screaming at him, eyes wide, her whole body in attack mode. “I may never see him again and it’s my fault!”
“Why is Cooper’s gambling and drug habit your fault?” Ethan gritted out as he wrestled with her, trapping her legs between his as she lifted one to kick him. He raised the arm of the chair and then used his body weight to flip her under him. She managed to free an elbow and jab him hard in the stomach, which made him grunt.
“I should have taken his calls!”
She was breathing hard as she fought against him, her body bucking, but he was bigger so his weight advantage kept her pinned beneath him.
“Okay, so because you didn’t take his calls, he went out and took more drugs and gambled, is that how you think it went?”
She closed her eyes tight as he looked down at her, and suddenly all the fight went out of her as she stopped struggling beneath him.
“I should have spoken to him. Maybe I could have helped him.”
“It would have been putting a band-aid on it, honey, you know that. Talking to you would have only stopped him for a while. He’s sick, he needs help, and you may be a nurse, but you can’t do this alone, especially if he’s a man who doesn’t want to be helped.”
Not yet, anyway, Ethan thought. He had a few plans running through his head, but before he could implement them, they needed to get Cooper out of Vegas.
“He’s my brother.” Her words were a ragged whisper, the sound of a brokenhearted woman.
“I know, baby, and we’ll get him back, I promise.”
She let him pick her up and carry her to the bedroom at the rear of the plane. Lying with her on the bed, Ethan then held her until he felt her body ease into sleep. When he was sure she was out, he went back out to the main cabin and began making calls.
They touched down in Las Vegas at three o’clock in the morning. He’d arranged for an SUV to be waiting for them at the airstrip.
“Is that waiting for us?”
“It is,” Ethan said in answer to Annabelle’s question.
“How did you get it here when it’s not even working hours?” She looked around and then back to the vehicle.
“Money and contacts is how. Now get in,” Ethan said.
He started the SUV and headed out of the airfield. Bills had given him directions to the place he’d last seen Cooper, which had been two days ago.
“You know he’s going to look bad, don’t you? He will have lost weight, and probably won’t be lucid if he’s as bad as this guy Bills says he is,” Ethan said. He needed to prepare Annabelle for what they would find, and that was only if they found Cooper Smith still alive.
“I’m a nurse.” She said that as if that answered everything.
“And you’re exposed to drug addicts daily in Howling, is my guess.”
“I’m not a fool. I trained in Washington, and they have drug addicts there.” Her words were flat.
“We’ll get him out of here. I promise,” Ethan, said hoping he could deliver.
She sighed. “I hate that you’re involved in this, but it feels a whole lot better knowing you are.”
He squeezed her knee but said nothing further.
The address was a four-story apartment building in a seedy part of town. Ethan pulled the SUV up under a streetlight and collected the bag of money from under the seat.
“What’s in that?”
“Cash and a gun,” he said calmly before lifting his shirt and tucking the money around his waistband.
“Oh my God, is that all the money? A hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Someone put it under the seat ready for you and you never told me?” Annabelle’s eyes were wide as she watched his movements.
