“Stay,” she managed to get out.
“Addie doesn’t say much,” Cash told them. “She has trouble talking when she’s anxious or scared.”
She could feel herself going bright red with that explanation, but to her surprise, neither man looked at all surprised. There were no weird looks or pretend concern. They both just nodded.
All right. Maybe Cash had brought her to a good place to get some help. Although she still wasn’t entirely sure what they were going to do. And she knew that Cash still wanted her to tell him about the man with the dead body.
She wished she could bring Snaggles out, but she couldn’t do that here.
“Give me one minute and I’ll be back,” Brody said. “And then we’ll help you find your sisters? It was your sisters, right?”
Oh, that’s why they were here. Cash had brought her here to help find her sisters. Relief filled her as she nodded.
Cash turned to her as Brody left the room. “Come here, Addie. You need to sit down. You’re shaking. Come drink this hot chocolate.”
Oh, so now it was all right for her to drink the hot chocolate, was it? She shook her head at him. He was out of control.
Brody returned with his laptop, sitting down and opening it. “Right. Sorry. Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes, I would really like to know that too,” Ink said.
Addie moved back in her seat by Cash. Her legs were trembling so hard she didn’t think she could stand much longer anyway. And she didn’t want to embarrass herself by collapsing to the floor.
Just as she settled in her seat, the door crashed open again. She squeaked and jumped.
“Does no one know how to enter a room quietly, for fuck’s sake?” Cash muttered.
The man who walked in stared around at them all in surprise. “What are you all doing here?” He scowled as though it was a really big imposition that they were here. He was huge, with wide shoulders and extremely tall. His head was shaved bald, and he had a kind of menacing appearance that immediately made her lean against Cash.
“Butch, do you remember that I own the place?” Ink said dryly.
Butch suited him. He grunted.
“What are you doing here?” Ink asked.
“Needed a quiet place to think. Apartment to my left has a sick baby that cries all night, other side has a nympho who humps all night.”
“That’s more than I needed to know,” Ink said. “Now that you’re here, you might as well sit in. I might need you to work this job anyway.”
How much did it cost to hire these people to find her sisters? And maybe they didn’t even need to be found. She had no idea. She probably should have just gone back to the bar.
“Someone talk,” Ink said gruffly.
Addie hunched in on herself, feeling ridiculous because the words just wouldn’t come. Ink gave her a look, and his faceseemed to soften. “Not angry at you, sweetheart. It’s just that if your sisters are missing, every minute counts.”
Oh, God. She hadn’t thought of that, and she’d wasted so much time.
To her surprise, it was Ralen who started to speak. He told them everything from the brawl, finding her, and going to the hotel.
“There was no sign of them at the hotel?” Brody asked.
“No, and that’s the really odd part,” Cash said. “When we got to the hotel room, we found it trashed.”
“Trashed?” Brody asked. “Why would somebody have trashed it?”
“Addie said that one of her sisters tends to keep the little card holder that the hotel keycard comes in,” Ralen explained. “We think that maybe someone found and used it.”
“Fuck,” Butch said. “That’s a stupid thing to do.”
