Page 39 of Avenging Kelly

“I need to call Casper to see if he can find Trudeau. That girl with Fleming was the same one Bess Trudeau had with her on that CCTV feed Casper found from Portland. She’s in police custody right now, and I gotta hope her parents are looking for her. First, though, I wanna run by the hospital and be sure those girls are okay,” London said.

I nodded as I started the car, worry overtaking my mind immediately.

* * *

For an hour and a half, I nervously waited in the car while London was in the hospital. I continued to check the sat phone for the time, worried about what was taking so long.

Finally, I was at the end of my rope. It was after three in the afternoon, and I’d heard nothing from London, so I grabbed the keys and went in through the front door of the hospital instead of the emergency entrance.

Stopping at the gift shop, I bought a baseball cap and pulled it onto my head. I also picked up a dozen packages of peanut butter crackers because I had a feeling those young girls we’d found might be hungry.

When I made my way to the emergency waiting room, I couldn’t find London anywhere. I headed to the information desk when I glanced through a slim window of a yellow metal door, seeing London sitting in a chair at a table, his hands zip-tied together and resting on the top.

I stood there, mouth gaping, until he turned toward the door and saw me. He shook his head and motioned for me to go, so I put the bag of crackers on a chair and took off. As I rounded the corner, I saw a bunch of cops pacing outside a curtained area, and I knew shit had taken a turn for the worst.

* * *

My mind was racing a million miles an hour as I drove Delia’s car to the little bungalow Duke’s mothers had shared. I wasn’t about to knock on her door, having no idea if anyone had followed me to her house, so I grabbed the stack of cash and the phone from the bench seat of the old car and dropped the keys into the mailbox before taking off down the block.

As I was about to round the corner, I remembered something important. “Fuck!”

I stopped at the end of the block and pulled out the phone, scrolling through the contacts’ list before calling the main number. It rang three times before it was picked up. “GEA-A. Dominic speaking.”

I was about to hang up because I didn’t really know the guy, but then I thought of London, who was likely headed to jail because his kind heart had forced him to check that the girls didn’t suffer the same fate as my sister.

After searching my brain, I suddenly remembered Dominic bringing coffee drinks into the main conference room when I first dropped in to talk to Gabe Torrente after my sister went missing. I wished to fuck Mathis was still around. He’d know exactly what to do.

“Hi, uh… This is Kelly Brown. London’s been arrested,” I explained rather lamely.

“Why?” The man’s tone was sharp, but I had to get someone to help London out.

“Well, uh, something happened that we didn’t expect—”

“Hang on a minute.”

There was an instrumental version of a Bon Jovi song that would have made me smile under any other circumstance, but the man I loved was in jail—or so I thought—and I’d been a fucking coward and left him. That wasn’t me at all.

“Kelly?” The voice was Smokey’s, and I was a bit relieved.

“Yeah, man. We got into a raft of shit.”

“Tell me what happened. Duke and Ace are on their way to San Diego as we speak,” the man encouraged, so I took a deep breath and gave him the rundown.

“So, while I’m helping the girls off the goddamn ladder, London’s not coming down. I was strapped, even though London told me not to carry, and I climbed up the fucking thing to see that goddamn pimp holding a gun on him. London was fucking praying as he stood there with his hands in the air, so I took the shot,” I explained.

Shep Colson exhaled. “Did you get the fucker?”

“Yeah. Easy shot. But then London got worried about the girls since they were all really young. He wanted to swing by the hospital to be sure they were okay, and I waited for him to come back out, but he didn’t, so I went looking for him. He was in a little conference room, zip-tied, and he motioned me off. There were cops everywhere, and I’m afraid they’re arresting London for something to do with the girls.”

My gut clenched at the idea of anyone mistreating London. He was a good guy, and that anyone might believe he could harm a child nearly brought tears to my eyes.

“Where’s Dallas?” Smokey asked.

I blew out a breath. “No idea. We left him and the chef in Washington.”

I wished to fuck they were there with us. I was sure Dallas St. Michael would have some good ideas about how to handle the situation.

“Got it. I’ll find Dallas and have him come get St. Michael out of jail. Just lay low, okay? You got a place to stay?” That was a good question.

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