“A change?”
“You’re pregnant, Sloane. You’re carrying our son.”
My hand goes to my stomach. The thing I’ve been feeling — the difference I couldn’t name. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve been certain since yesterday morning.”
“And you waited until now to tell me?”
“After the ring seemed right.”
I laugh through my tears. “A ring and a baby in the same five minutes. You really don’t do anything halfway.”
“I’m an Irontree. We’re thorough.”
I look down at the ring on my finger. Warm gold catching the light. Then I press my palm flat against my stomach.
Life is certainly looking up, filling with career fulfillment, love and family.
Now all I need is to know that my friend is safe and sound.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aldar
I’ve called Lucy Rodriguez twelve times.
Twelve calls, twenty texts, and I’ve checked every social media platform she uses. There’s nothing on her social media since yesterday afternoon when she posted a photo of her gray cat sitting on a stack of Library of Congress documents with the caption:My research assistant is very serious about his work.
I replied with a single thumbs-up emoji because I’m not the kind of orc who sends multiple emojis or exclamation points. That’s Jonus’s department.
But right now, I’m pacing my hotel room in Washington DC at ten o’clock at night, concerned about her whereabouts.
Luce was supposed to be at the media event tonight. She confirmed this morning. She was excited. “I need to see if you’re as intense in real life as you are over text,” she’d joked.
I spent eleven minutes deciding between two shirts, which is ten minutes and fifty seconds longer than I normally spend on clothing decisions. I chose the darker one because she oncementioned in a text that she liked dark colors on orcs, a detail I filed away and am now irritated at myself for remembering.
And yet she didn’t show.
She’s not answering her phone and not reading my texts. Her social media has been silent for over twenty-four hours.
I left the event without saying goodbye to anyone because I couldn’t stand in a room full of celebrating humans while her phone rang and rang and rang.
I should be analyzing this logically. There are dozens of explanations. Dead phone battery. A Metro delay. She fell asleep. She got caught up at work — Lucy loses track of time in the Library of Congress stacks the way other people lose track of time on their phones. She’s told me this about herself and I found it charming, which should have been my first warning sign.
But my tactical mind keeps running scenarios I don’t want to think about. The human criminal, Larry Aldridge, is arrested but his network isn’t fully dismantled. Lucy helped Sloane with the research. She pulled Library of Congress records, chased down financial documents, dug through corporate filings. Her name is probably in files that were seized from Sloane’s Georgetown apartment.
Lucy is connected to the investigation that just put a billionaire in prison. And she lives alone.
I pace. The hotel room is too small for an orc. My horns don’t scrape the ceiling but it’s close. The bedspread is too soft. The lighting is wrong. Everything about this city is wrong and I want to go home to Truckee except that Truckee doesn’t have Lucy in it, which is apparently a factor I now weigh when evaluating locations.
When did that happen?
I know exactly when it happened. Sloane was kidnapped in Colombia and Jonus was tearing apart the world to find her. Awoman called the house asking for information about her best friend. I answered because Jonus was on a satellite phone with his ex-SEALs and someone needed to give this woman an update before she called the FBI herself, which she was fully prepared to do.
“Is Sloane alive?” Lucy had asked me. Her voice was steady but I could hear the fear underneath. “Tell me the truth. I can handle it.”
I told her the truth. I told her we were organizing a rescue and that Jonus was coordinating everything and that he would bring Sloane home.
