Page 54 of Saving Bonnie

“All I can tell you is he was on the west side of town, heading north.”

“Okay. What have you done so far?”

“Everyone’s on alert. Iris is on lockdown. And I called you.”

“I’m on the ground—”

“And the other, bad news—well, maybe bad news,” she continues.

“That wasn’t the bad news?” I try to follow.

“Well, yeah, but…we’re not sure what happened to Bonnie,” she ends on a tentative note.

The words are a fist landing square in my gut. “Explain.” All I can do is lengthen my stride. I need to reach my car because something tells me this is bad.

“By the time Cord got to the café, she was gone. And he found her cell.”

I’m struggling between anger and something I don’t recognize. I’m a fish in the ocean, and her words are a net dragging me out of the depths.

“I went through the video and saw the delivery guy come by again.”

I have a flashback of the way she acted around him last week.

“She takes a box and puts it on the table then walks outside with him. I’m not sure if they left together or what, but she went willingly.”

A weight drops on my chest. I’m nobody to tell her what to do, or who she can and cannot see. But what if this is something else? “So what makes you think there’s a problem?”

“I just know,” she explains, with a plea for understanding. “She left her phone on the table. I mean, who does that?”

I can’t go by what little she’s pieced together. Anybody could leave and forget their phone. My mind goes to the image from a few days before. Bunny, clipboard in hand, putting some space between her and the guy.

“On the recording, it doesn’t look like anything’s wrong. I can’t tell you why I feel like this,” she continues with a note of confusion and defeat.

I should have set up a camera along the side of the building. But I was really looking for someone coming in as a customer. The rest of the cameras were an afterthought, for Bunny’s benefit.

“Cord’s on-site, in case Bonnie shows up.”

As soon as she mentions his name, my gut wrenches. Cord. Something inside me tells me that isn’t going to happen. Why wasn’t he there? Fucking piece of shit can’t even follow the other idiot we’ve been waiting for.

“He checked outside, and the gravel isn’t disturbed. No sign of a fight or anything, but I caught him on camera, and she’s not in the truck,” Kassy continues. “I have this feeling like something’s wrong, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Call Montoya.” The words are out of my mouth before I complete the thought.

“What?” she asks with a note of surprise.

“He might be able to tell us more,” I concede, hitting the remote to start my car.

“Wait.” Her fingers run across the keyboard. “Yes! I got him. Your ass is mine, you piece of crap,” she mutters under her breath.

I drop in behind the wheel. It’s about fucking time he popped his head up.

“He logged into his favorite porn site,” she explains. “I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away forever,” she says triumphantly. “And I just sent everyone the address.”

I hit reverse, peeling out of the parking space. “Send maintenance the address.” If there’s ever going to need to be waste removal, it’ll be now. “Get some of our uniforms to cover, and be ready to shut down communication in case someone calls the cops.”

“Gotcha. I’ll tell Dante you’re coming,” she says absentmindedly.

“No.”

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