No Good Deed - Marie Sexton Page 0,80
be ‘sayonara.’ But I don’t know if he’s going somewhere or—”
“He’s in trouble,” Gray said setting his beer aside. He turned to Warren. “We need to get over there right now.”
Warren didn’t even question his logic. “I’m right behind you.”
“Wait—” Charlie said, but Gray turned to Phil next. He handed him a business card out of his wallet.
“Call Garbowsky. Tell him who you are. Give him Charlie’s address. Tell him we have a possible hostage situation and that I’m on my way.”
Now everybody was alert. “What?” Taylor asked. “What’s going on?”
“Hostage situation?” Charlie asked, his heart pounding. Had Gray lost his mind? “What are you talking about?”
“I’m coming with you,” River said.
Gray looked at him for half a second, sizing him up. Charlie had no idea if River could fight or not, but he was plenty big. “Fine,” Gray said. “Let’s go.”
They rushed outside. Avery’s car was blocking everybody else’s in the driveway, and the four of them piled in, Gray and Warren in the front, Charlie and River in the back. Nobody had bothered to grab a coat, but Charlie had too much adrenaline coursing through him to feel the cold.
The tires screeched against the pavement as Gray backed into the street.
“Gray, what the fuck is going on?” Charlie asked.
“Doesn’t that word mean anything to you?” Gray growled as he threw the car into drive and hit the gas. “Sayonara?”
“What? No! I thought it meant goodbye.”
“It’s his safe word.” Gray’s jaw clenched. “It was his safe word, at any rate. Don’t you guys use one?”
Charlie gulped. They’d never needed one. Jonas had joked that he didn’t want to have to remember some random word during sex.
Some random word like “oranges.”
Jonas had asked him to buy oranges on his way home.
“Jesus.” Gray was right. Jonas was in trouble. He’d tried to give Charlie a signal, and when that had failed, he’d gambled on Gray. Charlie had never been grateful for Gray and Jonas’s shared past until that very moment.
They careened around a corner. River was thrown into Charlie. A horn blasted at them.
“Don’t kill us before we get there,” Warren grumbled. He opened the glove compartment and began digging around inside. Charlie pulled out his phone and dialed Jonas’s number. It rang and rang, but Jonas didn’t answer.
“Fuck!” Warren slammed the glove compartment closed. “Where’s your gun?”
Gray barely took his eyes off the road. “What gun? I had to turn it in when I lost my badge.”
They swerved around another cover. “You have other guns,” Warren said.
“Sure, in my gun safe at home. Not here.”
“Fuck! Are you kidding me? You don’t have one in your car?”
“No. Why? Do you?”
“Three of them. One in the glove compartment, one under the seat, and another in the back with the spare tire.”
“Jesus, Warren. You have issues. You know that, right?”
“Yeah? Well, right now, I’d take issues if it meant being armed.”
Another corner, this one throwing Charlie across the seat into River’s lap.
“Why do you assume somebody’s there with him?” River asked as Charlie righted himself and dialed Jonas’s number again.
It was Warren who answered. “Why else would he try to send some kind of cryptic message rather than just saying he needed help.”
River nodded. “Okay. Makes sense.”
They lurched to a stop at a red light. “Christ. I wish I still had lights and sirens.”
“Maybe the cavalry will beat us there,” Warren said.
Gray shook his head. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.”
Charlie kept dialing Jonas’s number, his fear escalating with each unanswered ring. Finally, they screeched to a stop in front of Charlie’s house. From the outside, everything looked absolutely normal, Charlie’s colorful windsocks and lawn gnomes at odds with the brown grass and dead trees. They climbed out of the car.
“How do you want to play this?” Warren asked.
“River and me on the front door. Charlie, go with Warren, but for God’s sake, let Warren go first.”
Charlie figured it wasn’t the time to argue over whether or not he needed to cower behind Warren.
“Fuck.” Gray ran his hands through his hair. “What I wouldn’t give to have an M4 in my hand.”
Charlie followed Warren toward the back door. “Next time, we take my car,” Warren grumbled.
“I’d like to think there won’t be a next time.”
Charlie debated going to one of his neighbors. A few of them were in gangs. They’d have guns. They’d probably be willing to help. But despite Gray and Warren’s complaints, Charlie felt the fewer guns in play, the better.
Charlie followed Warren up the porch