“As you do hers, so perhaps you should have dialed it instead of mine.” Before I can scoff for the second time, he steals the air from my lungs. “She’s in Ravenshoe.”
“Why?”
“I asked her to come,” he replies with no remorse in his tone whatsoever. “Figured it would be best for her to meet Jenni before she gifts her a grandson.” The reminder I’m about to become an uncle softens the grooves between my brows. “I also gave her a tour of the estate Nick is hoping to call home. She seemed very proud.” I hold back my vicious tongue long enough for him to add, “Although she did agree with you that the neighborhood isn’t the best for an upcoming rock prodigy.”
“He should be looking at properties behind manned gates.”
“And according to you, I should be bored out of my mind in a penthouse apartment.”
My immaturity gets the better of me when I roll my eyes. I’ve been trying to get him into one of my buildings for over four years now. He’s not once succumbed to my pleas. I’m not surprised. He is who I get my stubbornness from. “If you did, then perhaps Mother would have stayed with you instead of checking into one of my hotels.”
Dad’s scoff is laced with husky laughter. “For a man who is very hands-on with every business he owns, you need to get better intel on your guests.”
After a brief bout of laughter, he tells me to call my mother before he hangs up on me. I stare at my phone for several long seconds, shocked by his gall. My father isn’t a pushover by any means, but when it comes to my mother, all bets are off the table.
Too curious for my own good, after glancing into the bathroom to check that Isabelle is still preparing for our return to the world today, I crack open my laptop and place my mother’s name into the guest search bar at the top of a program that compiles the guests for all my properties into one database.
My brows quirk when my search comes back empty. My mother hasn’t stayed at any of my nationwide hotels over the past five years. Not even her credit card has been scanned at any of my many restaurants.
Conscious my father doesn’t lie even when it would benefit him, I dial a frequently called number on my cell before squashing it to my ear. Hunter answers half a heartbeat later. “Col won’t be leaving his bed any time soon.”
That wasn’t the direction I was anticipating for our call to take, but it does pique my curiosity. “Why?”
“I’m still trying to work out how to explain that without bringing up my peanut butter toast.” A computer chair clicking back into place sounds down the line before Hunter’s fingers moving over his keyboard a million miles an hour gobbles it up. “So how about I say he and his wrinkly fingers are…indisposed.” When I don’t immediately click to Hunter’s riddle, he snaps out, “Henry is being extremely generous with Col’s limited budget. He’s practically throwing women at him.”
“Keke—”
“Is the one sending me the stomach-churning imagery, so you don’t need to worry about her.”
I exhale a sharp breath before muttering, “Good.”
Assuming keeping tabs on Col is the reason for my call, Hunter advises me he will keep me up to date before he attempts to disconnect our call. I call his name before he can.
“Yeah?” he mutters after squashing his phone back against his ear.
I swallow to relieve the dryness impinging my throat before saying, “My mother—”
“Ohhh…” he murmurs before I can get out another word. “That’s why the gray eyes registered as familiar.” He can either feel my temperature rising from his glass house in Bronte’s Peak, or the growl rumbling in my chest is now audible since Isabelle switched off the shower faucet. “You have tabs on everyone, including your father, who’s been spending an awful lot of time with a pretty brunette with dazzling gray eyes.” When my growl deepens, he talks faster, “I forwarded the writeup of your father’s movements yesterday with Nick’s. It’s in your inbox.”
When I lower my phone from my ear, I tap the speaker button then log into my emails. The images attached to a brief synopsis of my father’s day are grainy but show my parents eating at Harlow’s bakery before they took a brief stroll along the foreshore.
“Did they not meet with Nick?” I ask when the surveillance dossier ends at four in the afternoon.
I can’t see Hunter, but I imagine him shaking his head when a whoosh sounds down the line. “From the reservation logged earlier today, I think that’s occurring some time tomorrow.”
“And my mother, where did she stay overnight?”
“Ahh…” Hunter ruffles through a stack of papers before disclosing, “With your father.”
“At the ranch?” I spit out, confident he’s wrong. When he makes a murmuring noise that sounds like an agreeing hum, I discredit his claims. “She wouldn’t be caught dead at a place like that. It doesn’t have good cell service, not to mention a personal butler.”
“Who needs a butler when you have someone willing to cater to your every whim for free. Have you seen the way your father dotes on her?” When I growl, Hunter discloses, “Her cell phone was pinged at the residence until eight o’clock this morning. Since your security briefs don’t include your mother, I stopped tracking her once she entered the freeway. Would you like me to add her to the briefs?”
“No,” I answer before the quickest collision of my eyes with Isabelle’s in the vanity mirror of the bathroom changes my mind. “Yes, but be respectful. I don’t want her to mistake caution for something it isn’t.”
“Okay.”
“Also,” I add before spinning away from the bathroom and lowering my voice. “Forward me anything extra you found out about Isabelle’s uncle.”
