I wiped my hands on my jeans, giving the room one last check as I reached for the door. Nick’s hand was poised to knock as I drew it open. His eyes narrowed on my face.
“You okay?” he asked as I smoothed back my hair and discreetly wiped my brow. “You look a little pale.”
“Just hungry,” I said, pasting on a smile.
“I thought you said you just ate.”
I blinked at him, backpedaling. “I did… earlier. Before my walk. Must be all that fresh ocean air. Guess I worked up an appetite.”
“Great. Where’s Vero staying? We’ll pick her up on our way.”
“She’s not coming,” I said. Nick frowned, worry lines etching deep around his eyes. “She and her friend are ordering room service, and they don’t plan to go out. I told her to call me when she’s ready to come back to the hotel.” His hand tightened a little around mine, as if he were wrestling against his instinct to keep us both safe. “Let’s go. I’m starving,” I said, plying him with a kiss as I led him out the door.
CHAPTER 8
I spent the next torturous hour pretending to be hungry as I took nibbles from a stack of pancakes while my mom battered Sam and Nick with cringeworthy questions about their families, their thoughts on marriage, and their experiences with small children. Delia chimed in to ask where babies came from and Zach erupted into a full-blown tantrum, demanding to be let down from his booster seat. Georgia and I took turns redirecting the conversation to safer ground between attempts to keep Zach from eating the complimentary crayons and Delia from using a straw to drink the river of syrup on her plate. By the end of the meal, my kids were so strung out on high-fructose corn syrup and red dye number forty, I was sure they would implode if we didn’t let them run it off.
We took the longer route back to the hotel, by way of the boardwalk, where we could safely let them down to chase a few seagulls. Georgia ran ahead of them, surveilling the sand for discarded syringes, used condoms, and broken glass. I took up the rear like a frantic sheepdog, keeping Delia from poking at washed-up jellyfish and half-buried trash bags and herding Zach away from the water’s edge so his shoes wouldn’tget wet. Nick and Sam looked exhausted just watching us. Our mother walked contentedly between them, lobbing questions like grenades between barrages of commentary on what makes a marriage work. By the time we finally made it back to our floor, I wouldn’t have blamed either one of them if they’d decided to pack up and go home.
After what seemed like an eternity, we returned to our room. I held the door open for the kids as they tumbled inside, leaving a path of sandy footprints on the carpet and sticky fingerprints on the walls. My mom wrangled them directly into the bathroom, ordering them to take off their clothes, their excited chatter muted by the loud rush of the faucet in the tub.
Nick stood in the doorway of my room, holding it open with his shoulder. “I had fun this morning,” he said softly, his lips turning up with a wry smile as if he knew what I was thinking. “I’m serious. Your mom is great.”
“She’s… a lot,” I said with a weary laugh. “I’m surprised Sam isn’t running for the hills. For that matter, why aren’t you?”
“It’ll take a lot more than a tantrum and a few minutes in the hot seat to scare me off. I’m trained in de-escalation and interrogation. Face it, you’re stuck with me.” He put an arm around my waist, drawing me closer. A persistent vibration in my pocket reminded me that this, indeed, was the problem; Nick wasn’t going to be distracted easily. “You should probably answer that,” he said. “It might be Vero. Find out where she is and I’ll have Sam pick her up.” He checked his phone, too. “Charlie’s gone out for a few hours. Probably hitting a few casinos.” Nick slipped his phone back into his pocket and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to grab a hot shower and a nap while he’s gone. I could use a rest before Garrett and I head to the station to meet with the local PD. Text me if you need anything. I’ll be right across the hall.” He cast a glance over my shoulder toward the adjoining room as he kissed me goodbye.
I locked the door behind him and took a quick look around. With the exception of the sand the kids had tracked in, everything appeared the same as I’d left it but slightly off, like looking at one of those side-by-side photos and trying to pick out the tiny differences. I peeked into Steven’s open door. He was sprawled on his back on his bed. A ball cap covered his eyes and his mouth parted around a snore.
I shut the door between our rooms as quietly as I could, listening for any sign that the sound had woken him. Contented splashing sounds came from the bathroom. Zach babbled as my mother deflected Delia’s relentless questions about how babies are made.
“But how does God put them in there?”
“With nagging and wine.”
“He turns wine into a baby?”
“Something like that,” my mother muttered as the faucet cut off.
My phone vibrated again and I whipped it out. There were no new messages from Vero. Just a string of missed calls and a text from an unknown phone number. The area code was from Virginia.
Call me as soon as you get this.—C
C? I ran through a mental list of every person I knew whose name started with the letter C. The only one who came to mind was Cam, the seventeen-year-old computer whiz I’d hired last fall while trying to sleuth outEasyClean’s identity. I’d only recently learned that Cam was also Joey’s nephew and a confidential informant for the FCPD, which made Cam a double agent of sorts, since he’d also taken a job working as a hacker for Feliks Zhirov.
With a muttered swear, I tapped the number on my screen.
Cam answered on the first ring. “It’s about damn time. What took you so long?” The chatter of his teeth was muffled by the howl of wind against his phone.
I lowered my voice in case anyone was lingering in the hall. “Where have you been? Your Uncle Joey and I have been worried sick about you.” The last time anyone had seen Cam, he’d been roped into doing some pretty horrible things for Feliks, and he was now wanted for questioning by the cops.
“I ran into a little problem. I need to see you.”
“You can’t see me. I’m in New Jersey.”
“I know. So am I.”
“You’rewhat?!”
