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I scream louder this time. Her eyes get huge. This is her worst nightmare, a pregnant woman going into labor in her office.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, breathing hard. “Just a cramp. It’s nothing, I just,shit!”
This time, I lean forward and hold her desk. She stands, panicked, and heads for the door.
“I’m going to get some help,” she says. “I am so not qualified to deal with this!”
She’s gone in a flash, and I get up quickly and move around to her computer. She didn’t even turn it off. Amateur. I quickly pull up her recent files and find an address for Charlie. I take a picture of it with my phone and move back to my chair, leaning over and breathing hard.
The girl comes back into the room with an older woman who looks like she’s probably popped out a few kids. The woman sits next to me and carefully rubs my back, asking me if she needs me to call an ambulance.
“That’s okay.” I sit back up slowly and blow out one more dramatic breath. “I think it’s starting to pass. My husband is waiting for me in the car. If it gets worse, he can take me to the hospital.”
The two women grab my arms and help me waddle down to the front door. As soon as they’re out of sight, I stand up straighter and try to track down Pocus. I find him nearly a block away, muttering to himself.
“Did you even notice I was gone?” I call out with a laugh.
He looks up at me in confusion, and I can tell that he didn’t. He was so lost in his angry thoughts. How can I blame him, though? This man cares so much about people it drives him to insanity. Really, I’m lucky.
“Where did you go?” he asks, bewildered.
I pull up the picture on my phone and hand it to him.
“While you were muttering to yourself like a crazy man, I faked an emergency and found out where Charlie is staying.”
He looks from the phone to me in amazement. I glow with pride under his gaze. Then, he falls to his knees in front of me, taking me totally by surprise.
“Abby, will you marry me again?” he asks dramatically.
I laugh at his ridiculous display and see that people have stopped to watch. I force him to get up. Then I wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him sweetly.
“I’m yours forever,” I tell him. “But if you want to renew our vows, let’s at least wait until this baby is born. I don’t have any energy to plan a major event right now.”
“Deal,” he says with a smile, kissing me again.
“Now let’s go find Charlie.”
A text comes in from Pocus as we’re pulling away from the Crestwood residence. I pull over to read it and see it’s a picture of an address. I immediately put the information in my GPS and wait for the information to load.
“What is it?” Hex asks, pulling over a few feet in front of me.
“I think we found Charlie. But I need you to go back to the house and talk to Snake about that kid. We need to find out as much about him as possible.”
“If you’re going to get Charlie, I’m coming with you,” he says, surprising me. “You’re not the only person who cares about her.”
I assess Hex and see that he really does care. I didn’t realize he’d interacted with her. But it only took meeting Charlie once to know how special she is. Still, I feel like this is all my fault. Something I need to do alone.
“I don’t know what I’m walking into. I can’t put you at risk too. I’ve done enough over the last few weeks to get myself in trouble. I’m not bringing you down with me.”
He rolls his eyes and flips me off. “Fine. I’ll go back, but promise me you’ll call me if there’s trouble. You’re not in this alone, Graveyard. You’re as bad as Pocus sometimes.”
He pulls away, and I watch him go, considering his words. Be that as it may, I am the one responsible for Charlie’s well-being. I snuck her out of the hospital. I brought her into my friends’ lives. Whoever is after her and Meredith is dangerous. I can’t let them put themselves in danger for my actions.
I follow the GPS to the address and feel sick. I was expecting a house, maybe an apartment building. This is an abandoned shack on the bayou. No child should be kept here. How could social services ever release a child to a place like this?
I get off my bike and walk toward the front door, ready to bust in and find Charlie. Suddenly I hear a loud bang. I immediately duck, but there’s another shot, then another. All in rapid succession. It sounds like a machine gun.
Charlie isn’t here. This is a trap. Whoever took her knew that we’d be coming for her. I scramble to get onto my bike, feeling a searing pain in my shoulder. I fumble with my keys. My heart pounds in my chest as I try to start the engine. All the while, bullets whizz by, slamming into the ground around me. No one is manning that gun. It’s been triggered to go off. I’m grateful it only hit my shoulder.
