Page 114 of The Romance Game

The rest of the evening breezes by and it’s only later that night, after Luke goes to sleep, that Ryan and I have a moment together. We’re splayed on the couch. Completely exhausted. Lights off. Just lying there, chatting and laughing in the darkness.

Then I bolt upright. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. Glandman stopped me when I was hanging up the balloons.” I describe the interaction.

“That creep.”

Both Ryan and I go quiet when we hear a crunching sound.

“What was that?” I whisper.

“Don’t mind me guys. Just having a sandwich.”

We whip around and Ryan flicks on the light.

CJ sits at the kitchen island, eating a sandwich.

“We really need to get our own place,” Ryan mutters.

“The others should be along any moment.”

“The others? We were together all day.” Ryan flops back onto the couch.

“There has been a development.” CJ wipes his mouth and slides something across the marble countertop.

Ryan picks up a postcard. He blinks slowly and I’m concerned he can’t read it, like the spidery script in the journal.

When I peer over his shoulder, I see that it’s to Chip, from Lorena. “Dated somewhat recently.”

We turn to each other, eyes filled with questions.

“She needs you? What does that mean?”

CJ shakes his head slowly.

“This is like the postcard she sent him when Captain J was still a kid. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised she’s still alive. But she must not know that her brother passed.”

“Do you suppose Captain J would know where she is?”

“There are a lot of unknowns,” CJ says.

“Aren’t you in the business of finding out what we don’t know?”

CJ lets out a breath. “Yeah. I think we’ll have to use some leverage, though. Maybe Captain J would be willing to help us if we made introductions to Glandman, ensuring he provides his son with additional funding for his hunt.”

“Isn’t Captain J our competition?”

“Keep your enemies close,” Magnus says, having entered silently.

“A full security system. Top of the line,” Ryan says, tossing up his hands at our revolving door.

“All of you lived here at some point, so it makes sense that they have keys, honey,” I whisper.

In the next five minutes, everyone arrives, we pass the postcard around, and ideas bandy about regarding what to do.

CJ reviews what we know.

“And let me guess, you’re going to tell us what we don’t know.” Ryan’s tone is wry.

“For starters, we still don’t know what the Salty Skeleton is.” Royal stares at his brother accusingly.

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