“Piper!”
I blink again, and focus back on the window, where a head has just popped into view.
Josh.
The sudden apparition startles me enough that I manage to push all my overwhelming thoughts aside. I start to speak to him before remembering I’m gagged.
I can’t believe it. He really is alive, he’s fine, and he’s… dangling out of a… tenth-floor window, I realize, as I remember the button Quill pushed in the elevator.
“What the fuck, Josh!” I try to say, but all I manage to make are some very weird sounds.
“Hold on, I’m coming,” he huffs, and then, grunting with effort, he manages to hook a leg over the windowsill and pull himself into the room.
Then he rushes over to me while I stare at him, trying to wrapmy head around how the hell he managed to climb up to a tenth-floor window. How he even managed to find where I’d been taken. Why he cared enough to look for me to begin with.
He grimaces as he takes in my gagged and bound state, then says, “This is going to hurt.”
With that, he rips off the duct tape from my mouth, and I bite down on a scream before choking out the handkerchief.
“Holy crap, Piper,” he whistles. “Look at us, living every detective’s dream. You’ve been kidnapped by a villain, and I’m freeing you!”
I repress the urge to roll my eyes, first because if there’s one thing I’m not feeling right now, it’s snarky. Second, because Josh did just somehow climb up ten floors to come rescue me, and that definitely doesn’t deserve an eye roll.
Instead, I gasp, “How did you know where to find me? How did you even climb up? Are you insane?!”
His face splits into a goofy grin as he works on freeing my wrists and ankles. “Wasn’t that badass? Well, thinking back to your reaction at the name Quill Nelson, I suspected he was the one who kidnapped you. So the first thing I did when I…” He interrupts himself with a grimace. “... uhm, walked away, was to call 911, obviously. Weirdly, though, when the lady at the other end heard I was calling about you and that I thought you’d been taken by Quill Nelson, she hung up on me. Not very professional, was it?”
I shrug my very stiff shoulders. It doesn’t surprise me, but Josh isn’t waiting for my reaction anyway as he continues excitedly, “So then, I looked up his address. I wish I could say I had to interview a ton of witnesses and work my way to him by hunting for clues, but the truth is, I just Googled.”
This time, it’s a smile I’m repressing as he concludes, “Then, well, I’m sorry to say I didn’t use high tech equipment or anything like that to climb up. I just asked the downstairsneighbor if I could use her balcony, and then I hopped up to this one. It was actually very easy.” He makes a wry face. “But maybe we can pretend that…”
I don’t let him finish. I lunge at him and give him a big bear hug.
He gives me a big grin, looking very pleased with himself. “C’mon, Nancy Drew. Let’s go!”
I hesitate as he nods at the open window. I am legitimately insane, because the one thing holding me back is knowing how angry the guy who bound and gagged me then left me here would be.
Not because I’m scared of his anger. But because I don’twanthim to be angry.
I’m nuts.
“Come on,” insists Josh, and the realization that I’m crazy forces me to action.
Quill isn’t here, and the mere memory of him isn’tquitepowerful enough for me to fall under its spell. I need to take advantage of his absence to actually follow through on the promise I made to myself.
Find the fucker who killed my parents. Destroy him.
Without Quill’s physical presence crushing down on me, I’m not even sure he didn’t do it, after all.
Everything’s possible, and the first thing we need to do is…
“Let’s go pay Officer Jones a visit,” says Josh, and I stare at him, surprised, because that’s exactly what was on my mind.
Josh really isn’t that stupid after all.
In fact, I realize I’m the one who’s been drawing stupid conclusions. Harsh, cruel, stupid conclusions. But when you’ve spent your life on the outside looking in, you don’t have much else to do. Even the nicest person can quickly become judgmental. And I’m not sure I was all that nice to begin with.
No, Josh isn’t stupid at all. In fact, he might just help me huntdown my parents’ killer.
