Page 83 of Mark my Words

“I’m going to pick up some coffee downstairs. Isobel still hasn’t heard from Chase, and they’ll be here in a half hour to take us to the airport.”

“Okay, I’ll head down after I’m done here. Just need to pack up my laptop.”

She was still standing in the little sitting area in the middle of our small suite when I left my room, sliding her tablet into her bag.

“Do you want me to grab you something, or...?” She trailed off, shifting her hair behind her shoulders after she pulled on her bag.

“Nah, you go on ahead. I can head down there and meet Adrian while you’re retrieving Chase. Have you heard anything more about Evan’s whereabouts?”

“No. Should we be worried? Chase struggled last night, and if he doesn’t show up, we’ll all be fricking screwed. Do you think she can pull this tour off by herself? Sloane still doesn’t know what’s happening, but it’s only a matter of time, right?”

“Take a breath.” It was clear Kristine was getting herself a little worked up about it. But we had to try to make do with what we had right now and keep the one writer we had on track. “Just go sort out Chase. I’m sure Diana will have a plan.” That was her job. The public relations department’s entire job was to manage situations like this. She’d know what we needed to do until we determined whether Evan was joining us. “We can still pull this off. I know we can. Let’s focus on what we can control and try to keep up with the schedule as planned.”

“Really? You’re trying to pep talk me right now?”

“We don’t have a choice right now. We either fake it until we make it or return to the office and turn in our resignations now.”

“That’s a little too fricking dramatic, Sam. Even for you.” A hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, and I could tell she was calming down a little.

“Yes, because I’m the one who has trouble with dramatics.”

She narrowed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled up the handle on her rolling luggage, giving me one last skeptical glance before she was out the door.

At least she was still talking to me, even if she pretended we didn’t mean more to each other.

“Hey, Sammy boy, where’s everyone else?” Adrian was still in one of the chairs in the lobby, feet up on the coffee table, while Isobel stood off to the side of the main entrance on her cell phone. She didn’t look particularly happy about her conversation, so I anticipated she either had no news about Evan or news none of us wanted to hear.

“Kristine went to check on Chase. Any word yet?”

“Isobel took a call a few minutes ago. I think it was from one of Chase’s kinky friends. Hopefully, they managed to track him down because we’re cutting it close on the schedule as it is.”

“You’re worried about the schedule right now, really?”

“What?”

“One of your authors had a panic attack and went missing overnight, and all you care about is the damn schedule for the tour? You’re unbelievable sometimes.” He could at least pretend to give a shit about Evan.

“Hey, you’re twisting my words. Of course, I care about Evan, but I can’t change the fact he isn’t here.”

Isobel was only a few steps away, angrily jabbing at her smartphone as she joined us. “He’s safe,” she sighed as she paced back and forth behind Adrian’s chair. “But he’s still asleep and was sick half the night. We don’t have time to wait for him to get cleaned up. He’s never going to make it on the flight to Chicago. I’m trying to secure him a seat on a later flight, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Fuck,” Adrian muttered.

“What do you need from us? Have you talked to Diana yet?” I asked as Isobel continued to look down at the screen on her phone.

“She said you can stick to the schedule as planned. Obviously, she’ll be there to facilitate, but it all depends on what state Chase is in. She’s usually rather good at rolling with the punches when things change at the last minute, but this is a pretty big punch.”

A few moments later, Kristine stepped out of the elevator with a slightly disheveled Chase in tow. She looked like she’d slept better than I had, but there was a tightness in her mouth I wasn’t used to seeing. She was typically a vibrant, sarcastic force to be reckoned with, but right now, she looked vulnerable.

Kristine was in a foul mood, snapping at everyone once we got to the airport. I helped Chase find a charger for her dead battery in the gift shop. Then, I tried to keep her occupied while Diana spent half the morning talking on her phone, and Kristine glared at everyone.

The Chicago leg of the tour was starting off great.

Chase got confirmation from Nathan that Evan was on his way, but we still had no idea when he’d join us when our flight took off.

I tried to initiate some small talk on the plane to distract her, but it was clear no one was in the mood to chat. Kristine put in her earbuds and ignored me the entire flight, so I opened my tablet and worked on edits to the fantasy manuscript.

We were all on edge with Evan absent, going through the motions as we landed and retrieved our luggage. Chase was upset they had no way to contact Evan after Kristine discovered he’d lost his phone down a sewer grate when Emory and Nathan tracked him down. They’d used it to ping his location, but he’d somehow dropped it outside the bar they found him in.

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