“Absolutely. Not very frequently, but when I’m super tired. Sometimes I won’t know where I am at first, if I wake up in a different bed.”
“Like here?” Grayson asked.
“Yeah, at a hotel, or visiting another friend’s house. Like Amy’s house before she married Cedric. We would have a girls’ night out and a ‘slumber’ party. I would get disoriented if I woke in the middle of the night, looking for the bathroom.”
“I bet.”
“If I shift and wake you, feel free to shift to join me.”
“The same with me. I would welcome the company.”
They made love and then settled down to sleep, cuddling with each other the whole night until Grayson’s phone rang.
He groaned, grabbed it, and put it on speakerphone. “Yeah, Rowland. I hope you’re calling to tell me you caught Younger and Billy.”
“No, sorry. But you’re in Whitefish, correct?”
“Yeah. We are going to Kalispell later this morning.” Grayson was going to tell Rowland about their plan to try to get hold of Billy, using Ivy to reach out to him.
“Hold off on that. We tracked the kid’s gaming account for recent logins and IP addresses. He’s at a location in Whitefish.”
“We’re on our way.” Grayson hurried to dress.
Kendra was already dressing.
“We have officers headed that way and have alerted the cops in Whitefish, but you might get there sooner.”
“We’re on our way out the door.” Grayson got the address for the location. “Who owns the house?”
“It’s an old barn converted into an apartment for the teens to use to play games, have parties, and sleepovers. A fellow high school student’s uncle owns the place. Darryl Hoffstetter is Billy’s friend. He loves video games as much as Billy does, and they play whenever they can. Billy told Darryl that his mother had banned him from playing games and wanted him outside doing more physical activity. So Darryl told him to go to the apartment. He swears he didn’t know Billy was on an ankle monitor.”
“Is Darryl at the house with him then?”
“No. We have him detained so he can’t warn Billy we’re coming for him. Billy is playing with some other gamers remotely so hopefully he remains clueless that we’re on our way there.”
“Good.”
“Just keep the line open so I know where you are and what’s going on,” Rowland said.
“I will.”
They just hoped they didn’t lose Billy before they could get him into custody again.
19
While Grayson was driving, Kendra got on her phone, called Grayson’s dad, and put the call on speakerphone. “Hi, it’s Kendra. We’re on our way to try to apprehend Billy in Whitefish. So we might not be taking Ivy to the mall to try to capture him there. We just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“Oh, good. Do you need Marcus to join you to bring Billy in?” Grayson’s dad asked.
“Rowland is coordinating with law enforcement to help us deal with this,” Kendra said. “We’re on Bluetooth with him now. Besides, we need you and Marcus to be there for Ivy, just in case things go sideways, since Billy is in Whitefish now.”
“Okay. Let us know what goes down. The girls were up most of the night, and they’re still sleeping.”
Kendra sure remembered overnights like that with her girlfriends. Those were the best days. Well, as a teen girl. Being with Grayson sure topped that experience.
“We’ll let you know what’s going on when we know.”
“Okay, thanks.” Then the dad ended the call.
