Insatiable (Steel Brothers Saga #12) - Helen Hardt Page 0,15

this is your fault.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Or yours, before you say it is.”

I nodded. Melanie was a good woman. She, Jade, and Ruby had married into a mess of problems—problems they’d all thought were over.

Until Joe and I had remembered Justin Valente.

This couldn’t be easy on Melanie and Jade especially, both being pregnant.

“This is a big one,” Melanie said.

“Does it hurt?” Joe asked.

“No. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not crampy or anything. My whole belly just gets really hard.”

“And you’re sure it’s normal?”

“That’s what the doctor says. Plus, remember I’m also a doctor.”

Joe nodded, his eyes still on the road. “I know, baby. But I worry about you, okay?”

“Trust me. These are noth— Oh!”

Joe swerved but quickly corrected it. “What? What is it?”

“I— I think my water just broke.”

“Turn around,” I said. “Get her to the hospital.”

“That’s ridiculous. We’re almost home,” Melanie said. “You can drop Bryce off. We need to be thinking of Marjorie and your mother.”

“Right now I’m thinking of my wife. If your water broke, that means…”

“Yeah,” Melanie said. “It means this baby is coming. But we have twenty-four hours before we have to worry about infection.”

“Infection?” Joe said. “What about the fact that your due date isn’t until— Shit!” He swerved to avoid a truck.

Fuck! Was it too soon? I didn’t want to be the one to ask that question.

“Thirty-two weeks,” Joe was saying, more to himself than to Melanie or me. “The baby will be okay. The baby has to be okay.”

“Just stop and let me out,” I said. “I can walk the mile to the guesthouse.”

“That’s silly,” Melanie said. “We can take you home.”

The few minutes to get home seemed like hours to me, so I could only imagine what it was like for Joe.

“Get her back to the hospital,” I said when they dropped me off. “I’ll call everyone and let them know what’s going on.”

“You find Marjorie and her mom,” Melanie said. “We’re counting on you, Bryce.”

My eyes still swollen and slightly painful, I ran into the guesthouse. I quickly dialed Talon and then Ryan to let them know what was happening.

Joe.

My best friend.

His baby was early. Premature. I should be at the hospital with him and his wife.

But Marjorie…

Her mother…

Colin…

Someone needed to focus on them.

And that someone was me.

I’d be on pins and needles until I heard from Joe. Thirty-two weeks. Was that considered premature? I remembered from Henry’s birth at thirty-eight weeks that the doctors liked a woman to make it to thirty-six. Plus, Melanie was nearly forty-one. She was hot and gorgeous, but old when it came to childbearing.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Now what?

Cade Booker.

I had to figure out who the hell Cade Booker was and why he was keeping information from us. I had no idea if he could lead me to Marjorie, but at the moment, he was all I had. Now the police would be looking for him as well.

He’d probably gone on the run, anyway. A man couldn’t just pepper spray a Steel and walk away unscathed.

There would have been questions.

Lots of questions.

Where was I supposed to begin?

I fired up my laptop and started searching for Cade Booker. His law firm came up first. His bio was no help. It extolled his virtues.

Right.

Why was I doing this when I had access to the best PIs in the business? I put in a call to Ruby. She didn’t pick up, so I left her a message. She was probably out working on finding Marjorie and her mother.

Why hadn’t I gotten the number for those PIs, Mills and Johnson, from Joe?

I tried the search engine again. Several of those companies offering arrest records surfaced. For a mere membership fee of twenty-nine ninety-five, I could get all the information they had on Cade Booker and anyone else.

I was desperate, so I succumbed. There went thirty bucks I’d never see again.

Cade Booker, age thirty-eight. Same age as Joe and me.

Relatives. Alessandra Booker, age twenty-four. Too old to be Cade’s kid. Dominic Booker, age twenty-four. Richard Booker, deceased.

Dominic.

I’d heard that name recently.

Yeah, Marjorie’s trainer. His name wasn’t Booker, though. It was James.

I was going crazy. So Marjorie’s trainer was named Dominic. Who cared?

Cade Booker had an exemplary FBI record as far as I could tell, but he’d only been with the bureau for a couple years.

I needed a hacker.

The Spider.

He still hadn’t responded to any of Joe’s or my attempts to get in touch. I’d committed his information to memory. Why not use it? I certainly had