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He looks up at me and holds up one finger like this is any other day and I’m interrupting him.
No. Way.That phone is going out the window.
I reach for it.
Someone clears a throat behind me, and I turn, hoping to see Momma.
It’s Bridget.
She wears a loose gold gown cinched at the waist by a belt of faux flowers like something a Greek goddess might wear.
Traitor. But, of course, they let her come to the party. Need everything to look normal for our guests and the FBI, even though it isn’t normal. And, soon,Bridgetwon’t be normal. She’ll have her memory altered. She’ll be M-erased. Good.
I push away from the desk and head to her. “What’s going on?”
“Justice.” Bridget uses her customary let’s-get-calmed-down-and-seated-before-we-proceed voice.
The familiar tone, the normalness of it, hurts in a way I hadn’t anticipated—a physical ache in the center of my chest to accompany my growing panic.
I shove it away—shove all the pain into a box. “Don’t fuck with me right now, Bridget.”
Leland puts a hand over the mouthpiece. “The limo we sent for Sandesh was found abandoned, the driver dead in the trunk.”
The driver? Lewis? His poor family.
Straightening my shoulders, lifting my head while clenching my stomach, I ready for the next punch. “And Sandesh?”
Leland pauses as if listening on the phone.
Come on!I can barely fucking breathe right now.
“Leland.”
He hangs up. “They took him.”
I don’t faint. Would never in a million years faint, but my legs, it turns out, can forget to keep me standing. I stumble back, plop right onto my ass in the chair in front of Leland’s desk.
“It’s Walid,” I say, glaring at Bridget. “It has to be.”
She shakes her head. “I know nothing. Maybe Dada. Her contact.”
That makes sense and it’s a lifeline I can cling to. “Leland, tell Dada to get her ass in here.”
“Iamhere, abrasive one.”
Dada, wearing a cream gown with black brocade and capped sleeves that show off her toned arms, strolls through the office’s mahogany double doors.
I stand. Wet noodles have more strength than my legs, but I push past the chair.
The doors open and close again as Tony and Gracie enter. Tony has undone his bowtie so that it hangs around his neck like a loosened noose.
“No.” Leland waves a hand at them. “We need to have actual family members out there, entertaining.”
Tony spreads his hands in an are-you-serious gesture. “We got plenty out there. Ramla and her kids are here, bunch of showoffs.” He comes up to me, puts an arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry, kid.”
Furious, I shrug him off. “Sorry is something you tell someone when they have no choice but to deal with something. I’ve got a choice, Tony. I’m going after him.”
He stares at and into me for a whole three seconds before he nods. “I’m with you. Remember that. I’m always with you.”
