“Okey dokey,” I whispered, slid the picture in my purse, grabbed the strap and when his body pulled out of the frame, I exited the car.
* * * * *
Ginger and I, escorted by Vance Crowe and Luke Stark, entered the Nightingale Investigations offices.
They were posh, all gleaming wood and bronze statues.
Nice.
“I can’t believe you ditched me!” Tracy screeched after I got two feet in the door. I turned to look at her and she was advancing on me then she skidded to a halt when she saw Ginger. “Holy crap! You busted her out!” she yelled.
“I didn’t bust her out. She escaped,” I replied.
“Shee-it,” an African American woman with a very large afro and stunning tawny brown eyes was sitting behind the reception desk and staring at Ginger. “Little thing like you caused all this ruckus? Feds, cops, badasses, commandos all in a tizzy. Denver’s underground and overground spinnin’ like tops.” She smiled huge and nodded once before she finished with, “you go, girl.”
Ginger grinned at her.
I looked toward an inside door that had opened and Lee Nightingale and Jorge were coming out of it.
“Smoke,” I whispered.
“Thinkin’ we should count ourselves lucky you don’t clue in that Hawk still watches your every move, babe,” Jorge said to me. “And that means your every move. He’s got a tracking device on your car.”
Shit.
“And in your phone,” Jorge went on.
Shit!
“And we monitor your calls and texts,” he finished.
Shit!
“Okay,” I replied. “So if you monitor my texts, does this mean you’ve been looking for him since this morning?”
“Lookin’ and findin’, Gwen,” Jorge returned. “Mighta went faster we didn’t have to keep your shit covered, you runnin’ around Denver, findin’ trouble.”
My relief was so extreme, I felt lightheaded.
“You found him?” I breathed.
“Rescue mission is imminent and would be under way, we didn’t have to lock you and your sister down in Lee’s safe room to keep your shit out of trouble.”
My relief fled as my eyes narrowed. “What did you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know, hit base and tell us Hawk was compromised?” Jorge shot back.
Sarcasm.
“I didn’t want you to go all commando and get him killed!” I yelled.
“Part of Hawk’s business is K and R, babe,” Jorge informed me.
“I don’t even know what that means,” I informed him back.
“Kidnap and ransom, or, for Hawk, the R stands for rescue,” Jorge enlightened me.
Wow. That was cool.