“Sam and Nicole have gone to Traralgon,” Scott said in a hollow voice. “They’ve been there two days but haven’t found anything to suggest she’s there or has been there.”
“Shit.” Toby stared at the picture, willing the doodles to make sense. To tell him what Tabby was thinking.
“So, what’s the plan?” Maisy asked. “Does anyone know how to interpret these scribbles?”
“No,” Noah grunted. “We need to find Edgar and ask him to come home.”
Toby stared at him. He’d forgotten about Tabby’s father, though considering the man had been AWOL the whole time he’d known her, that wasn’t surprising. “Have you already spoken to him?”
Noah made a low, grumbling noise.
“We’re having trouble on that front,” Scott said, with a sidelong look at Noah. “We know he’s in Ubud, but we can’t get hold of him. Either he hasn’t paid his landline bill, or something happened…”
“It’ll be the landline,” Noah muttered. “That’s Ed. Useless with modern tech.”
Toby decided to ignore the ‘referring to a landline as modern tech’ thing. “Ubud? As in Bali?”
“Yes,” Scott said. “As far as we know, he’s still there, but we can’t make contact.”
“Okay, well, at least it’s not too far away. What are you gonna do?”
Again, Scott and Noah looked at one another.
“What?” Toby demanded. “What are you gonna do?”
“They want you to go to Bali, dahling,” Maisy said, sounding amused. “I’d imagine that’s the reason for all the roundabout talk before now.”
“What?” Toby spat. “Scott?”
His old boss flushed to his hairline. “I… yes. Look, we’re in a tight spot, Toby. I can’t get any time off work, and we need Edgar. He and Tabby were close. He might know where she’d go in a crisis, but we can’t reach him, and we need to.”
Toby’s chest went tight. However he’d thought this meeting would pan out, he didn’t think it would involve going on a rescue mission to Bali to recover Tabby’s dad. “What about Noah?”
“I’m not going anywhere near Bali,” the big man muttered.
“Why not, dahling?” Maisy asked with interest. “Did you have a bad seafood experience?”
“No.”
“Then why?” Toby asked, looking Noah right in the eyes. “You’re the one who’s been talking to him this whole time.”
Noah clenched his jaw. “Look, I don’t wanna get into it, but my old man’s over there.”
“Oh,” Toby said, seeing the problem immediately. Noah’s ex-biker dad probably wasn’t someone you wanted to run into at a baggage carousel, even if you weren’t the son who’d left the MC life behind. “Right.”
“Right, what?” Maisy asked. “What’s wrong with your father, Noah, dahling?”
“Everything.”
“Even so, surely you won’t come across him in a city of millions?”
“Well, seeing he said he’d kill me if he ever saw me again, that’s not a risk I wanna take,” Noah said drily. “Probably best I avoid the place.”
“What about Sam?” Toby said before Maisy could ask any gleeful follow-up questions. “Why don’t she and Nicole go to Bali?”
“They are… Not speaking to either of us at present,” Scott said, his gaze firmly on the table.
“Found out I’ve been talking to Ed this whole time,” Noah muttered. “Nikki fucking lost it.”
