Finding Summer - Suzanne Halliday Page 0,116

me his goddamn name and whatever else you know so I can check this guy out. Don’t you want to know what’s really going on? My money is on your friend, honey, and not some bitchy twat with a big checkbook.”

Bitchy twat. She liked that phrase. It suited the dreadful woman.

Until this moment, she’d refused to name names. What difference did it make if she suspected he was using an alias? Wasn’t that exactly what she was now doing? People had reasons for things like aliases and prepaid maternity plans. She wasn’t in the position to cast stones.

But. Yep, there was a but. When she pressed Arnie for details about what he did for a living, he responded with a benign overview of things she suspected were way more serious than anything a regular person imagined. There was a stirring in her soul, and a warning voice urging caution. Cy wasn’t a threat, but loose lips could put Arnie in danger.

Danger. Shit. There it was again. She didn’t like the way peril seemed to have dug its claws into whatever this situation was.

Summer reached into her purse and dug through a zippered pocket. She handed Cy the dark blue calling card and watched his fingers move over the name embossed in gold.

“NIGHTWIND,” he murmured. First, he turned the card over, and she watched as his brows shot up. Then he held it up to the light although Summer had no idea why. “Jesus,” he grated. “Who the fuck is this guy?”

Deliberately paraphrasing the details, she gave her trusted friend a shortened version of what she knew.

“He said his name was Arnie. He told me this NIGHTWIND place is a posse of do-gooders who right wrongs. It’s based in New York City. One night, he got a call on his cell, and I heard him say Templeton when he answered. I assumed his name was Arnie Templeton. When I asked at the hotel, no one by that name was registered. He stayed in a private bungalow. It turns out, the hotel has several.” She wrung her hands. “That’s it. That’s what I know.”

“Why was he in Santa Barbara?”

“Um, oh, yeah. Well, it was some sort of family retreat. This has to stay between us, Cy. I don’t want anyone else to know.”

“You have my word, missy.”

Summer felt dreadful. She was queasy and experiencing wild temperature swings. One minute, she was sweating, and the next, she was chilled.

Pulling out her phone, she searched pregnancy issues related to her symptoms and learned nothing new.

Morning sickness didn’t only clock in for the early shift—something she discovered one evening after heaving her guts into a toilet while attending a night lecture series for school.

She covered her tummy with both hands and tried to imagine the new life growing inside her. It didn’t matter how it happened. What mattered was how she faced the sudden detour a baby represented. It wasn’t only about her anymore. She had a child to consider. Eating healthier, whether she wanted to or not, was key. So was doing everything in her power to stay in the present. Healthy babies didn’t happen by chance.

Her eyes moved slowly around the quiet, dimly lit apartment. The apartment she was about to walk away from for good. It wasn’t fancy or special, but it was her home, and she’d been happy in the modest one-bedroom.

It was impossible not to be emotional about the sudden changes sweeping through every corner of her life.

A jumbo rolling suitcase and her stuffed overnight bag sat by the front door. It was critical to the pretense Cy and Joanne helped her create that she not attract attention and stick to the story. She was going on a cruise. More than one bag would be stretching things.

When the alarm she programmed into her phone sounded, she quickly silenced it, and with a deep sigh, followed the next step in the detailed ruse.

With her Nissan a thing of the past, she opened a car service app and ordered a ride to the bus station where she had a reservation for the bus to Long Beach. Once there, she’d head to the waterfront, check in for the cruise and then quietly slip away. Her first task once she was officially on the run was to ditch her cell phone and activate an unregistered burner phone. A car and driver would be waiting to take her to Los Angeles and her new life as Summer Leigh.

It didn’t take long before the tracking data