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“Wait, where’s Eden?” Bianca asked him as she stood.
The woman nodded smartly at Elias, as if to saythis is on youand left the room. Elias kept Bianca’s arm and guided her out, nodding at the uniformed security guard. The guard led them to the service elevator and brought them down the hallway.
“Wait,” Elias said under his breath to her as they passed other suited individuals who had lariats around their necks. Strangely, all of their lariats were backwards. She wondered if it was a thing here.
Bianca held her questions until they were outside the hospital. “Elias, what the hell is going on? Where’s Eden?” she asked.
“Wait,” he said again to her. Then he raised a hand to her driver, sitting behind the wheel of the parked SUV next to his car. “I’ll take her home,” Elias told him, and then put Bianca in the front seat of his car.
It wasn’t until they’d pulled out of the parking lot, with the SUV following them, that she turned to Elias and said, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“We don’t know what’s going on yet,” he said. “We don’t know why Rick Ronson falsified his identity, but we do know that he signed Eden’s dismissal papers as Maxwell Ronson.”
“But that wasn’t House.”
Elias smiled. “As in, Maxwell House?” he glanced over at her.
“I’ve known him since we were kids.”
“You come up with that?”
“I thought it was funny,” Bianca said, smiling with him. Then she frowned, thinking about her friend. “But where’s Eden? And why didn’t Rick just put his name down?”
“He probably wanted to keep his name out of it, so he used his son’s name, which is illegal.” Elias paused, considering this. “You have any ideas? You know the family.”
She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. “No, but it is really strange. Maxwell would never agree to his dad using his name. He’d gogethis sister, but he wouldn’t let his father falsify a document. Not if it could get him in trouble. He’s too straightlaced.” Bianca was worried. Eden’s father was not a good person, and she didn’t like the thought of Eden being in his custody. “I just don’t understand why she hasn’t called me.”
“You think there’s any chance she might’ve been taken to rehab?” Elias asked.
Bianca considered it. “Maybe. I just can’t imagine her dad doing that. It would be too much of an embarrassment for the family.”
She felt Elias’ hand on her knee and looked back at him, heat seeping up her thigh at the lightest touch from him. She wanted him to move his hand up her thigh, and her heart sped up at the thought.
“Don’t worry. She’s safe. She’ll reach out to you eventually,” he said comfortingly, then he quickly removed his hand and put it back on the steering wheel.
Bianca turned slightly toward him, confused. She had no idea what that touch was about. Was he just being supportive?
She watched him take the proper exit to her house and then all the correct turns. “How do you know where I live?” she asked.
“It’s my job to know,” he said, smiling mysteriously at the road in front of them. He was being playful, and she smiled at his profile, playing along.
“AgentCopeland?” she asked as he pulled up in front of her brownstone. “Not officer?”
The playfulness vanished. He looked over at her, gauging her response as he spoke. “I’m an FBI agent,” he said. “Not a police officer.”
It took a moment for that to sink in.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, feeling like she’d been duped. “This whole time I’ve been calling you a cop and you never once said anything.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “But I don’t make a point of going around announcing to people that I’m an FBI agent, especially when working a case undercover.”
She didn’t mean to be impressed, but she was. “No way,” she said. “You’re undercover?”
“And you are dangerously close to blowing my cover,” he said seriously. “Bianca. No more calls to the police station, okay? I was telling your brother the truth. I know you’re worried about your friend, that’s why I brought you in tonight—yes, so you could officially identify Rick Ronson—but also so you could see that someone from her family came to get her. But after tonight, I don’t want you involved in this anymore. You’re done, right? You’re not going to go calling police stations saying your friend is missing, are you?”
She watched his profile, feeling the seriousness of the situation. “Is it dangerous? What you’re doing?” she asked.
He didn’t nod, but she got the sense that internally he was answering yes. “You came in, saw that your friend was checked out by a relative, and you no longer believe she’s missing, correct?” he said.
