Page 77 of Wayward
Dante laughs. “Haley’s not the only one who’s wet. How are you doing, Sam?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I kiss the inside of her thigh and help her back into her panties and pull them up before I crawl backward to my chair.
Easton and Zane are picking up the tumbled glasses while Calvin’s blotting at the wet tablecloth.
I hold her beautiful blue eyes and take a bite of my leftover breakfast roll. “Delicious.”
Four days. Four. Days. I’m going stir crazy. We’re not being treated as captives anymore, more like restricted guests. But there’s nothing to do. It’s worse than being on theRosewood. That was something I knew, even though we were captive. This . . . this is like being retired without hobbies. I come out of the bathroom, and Calvin is staring at Haley, who’s sleeping. “Let her be,” I whisper. “Unless you’re actually going to take an afternoon nap?”
He shakes his head and paces the length of the bedroom before he leaves. I follow him. Out of everyone, he’s going even more stir crazy than I am. “We should ask Holloway if he’s heard from Z,” Calvin says as we charge down the stairs together. We go out the back door. It’s drizzling, but I don’t care. Being inside makes it worse. I lead Calvin through the formal boxwood garden to a table covered with a wisteria trellis. It’s mostly dry.
“He’s not going to tell us anything,” I say, sitting at the table.
“We need to get out of here.” He sits next to me, and I lean forward to see his face.
“You think I shouldn’t have made the deal with Z? At least we’re not under lockdown. We can walk around.”
“I think there’s no honor among thieves, and he’s not going to let us walk out the door at the two-week mark. There’s a reason he thinks he’s protecting us. The evidence leads to not killing your ex-girlfriend’s brother if you’re still hung up on her. Honorable? Maybe. Fucked up, for sure. I don’t feel a damn ounce of responsibility or respect for the ass. I say we find a way to get out of here. The bigger the better. Bring in the media. Let’s just blow this out of the water.”
“True, there’s a reason that the bride and groom didn’t want it to happen at the resort. It would have brought in tons of media and connected their wedding with us being hauled away.” I nod because Calvin’s onto something. “We don’t need to walk into a police station and let them sweep us under the rug. We need to announce it to the world and let everyone know about the Zambranos and how they’ve been trying to kill us for over a year."
“And how are we going to do that now?” Calvin taps the monitor on his ankle. We’ve gone over them. There are no cameras, no sound. As far as we can tell, there’s nothing monitoring us in our room. However, outside there are cameras at the doors and walls, normal equipment for a house like this. A few around the grand staircase.
I point at the potting shed. I’m the one who made the deal with Z. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like to keep our options open. I’ve been searching the house for something to cut the monitors off with. But there’s nothing. The chef keeps the knives locked away when she’s not in there. And when she is, she has the door locked. A butter knife won’t do much. I’ve searched through every open drawer in any room not locked down. The library, as far as I can tell, doesn’t have any secret passageways. The young kid deep down in me was hoping there were—but if there are, I haven’t found them. The desk has stamps and a stapler older than my grandmother and nothing else. If the Zambrano family uses this estate, it’s not often and never for long.
It’s well-maintained, and the gardens have a crew of regular gardeners who come through. And there are at least two house cleaners who won’t make eye contact with any of us—and Zane has really tried. When the gardeners are working is the only time Holloway locks us inside.
Calvin and I saunter over to the potting shed. It’s a square brick building with a cupola on the top. A mermaid weathervane spins in the light rain. There’s a brightly painted green door on one side, and on each of the other sides is a window. Calvin tries the door while I go around to the other side. It’s farther away from the wall and possibly less likely to be covered by one of the wall cameras. Peering through the bubbled window glass, there’s a neatly hung row of tools, mostly for gardening. On the opposite side of the shed, I spy a pair of bolt cutters. I push up on the window frame, and it opens. There’s a stick on the inside windowsill.
“Door’s locked,” Calvin says before he notices the open window. “Awesome, you climb in. I’ll hold it open for you. I’m not going to fit in that opening. Plus, you proved you can fit into small spaces earlier in the week.” He smirks at me.
Inside the shed, I dust off my hands and step around a small hand-cutting mower, grabbing the bolt cutters. “These should do the trick.” I hand them out of the shed and climb back out the window, closing it behind me.
Calvin has the cutters tucked in the back of his waistband. We’re about to the side entrance when a car pulls into the lot. Things around here have been pretty regular. The cook comes and goes at the same time every day. The gardeners left when it started raining.
“Who do you think it is?” I ask.
Calvin and I round the corner. A tall woman with gray hair is getting something out of the back of the car.
Chapter 34
Sea Dog
Calvin
“Esmeralda?” I shout at the woman in the driveway. Her head snaps up, but it’s the sound from inside the car that’s more shocking. There’s a loud woofing, and it’s crazy to think, but I know that bark. It’s different from any other bark.
Sam takes off running to the car. He knows it too. I’m not going to risk the damn bolt cutters sliding down my pants or stabbing me in the waist, so I powerwalk to the car. Penny’s jumping up and down on Sam. When she sees me, she switches to jumping between us.
Esmeralda pulls a cat carrier out of the back seat. “I have your demon too.” She thrusts Pepper’s carrier into my arms. There’s a small lock on it. “Here’s the key.” She drops a luggage key into my hand.
“I thought we were . . .” I stop myself from mentioning our arrangement. There’s no need to out her if we’re wrong about the microphones in our ankle monitors.
She pats the top of the cage. “This demon clawed up the side of Z’s leg. It’s amazing that he didn’t have her killed. I told the elder Z I loved them and if he hurt the animals, I’d walk.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Honestly, I thought he was going to drown me. Instead, I’ve been transferred to this hellhole.” She waves at the château behind her. “But better yet, you get to take care of them now.”
Penny’s jumping at Pepper’s crate, and Pepper is doing a good job hissing back at her.
I hold the cage up and stare into it. “I’ve got you now.” I wish I had a hoodie on. It would calm her right down to snuggle into my chest.
