“No, we haven’t heard anything out of her.” He paused. “We haven’t seen her either,” he said. “Is everything alright?”
“Well, she’s not at the apartment,” I told him.
“I’m telling you, brother. After she gave Fang the heads up, she went back to him. We should have seen it coming,” he said.
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Fang was behind the attack at the park, which means if he came to get her, she’s in danger right now,” I told him.
I closed and locked my door. I didn’t need my home spread out and open for anyone who wanted to go in and look around. I knew how lucky I was that no one had already gone through my place.
“Look, stay by the phone, but make sure you and a couple of other guys are ready to ride if we need to,” I told him.
“You’re still going to protect her, even after everything she’s done?” Dante asked.
“Even after everything she’s done,” I answered. I couldn’t explain it, but she was in trouble, and despite all the trouble she’d caused, I’d promised to take care of her and to protect her. Plus, there was the possibility that she’d stolen something important from me when she left the apartment, whether I wanted to admit it or not.
It definitely would have been the first time a woman held my heart in her hands, but I wasn’t about to let anyone know that.
“You’re the boss,” Dante said. “Let us know what the plan is. We’ll be ready.”
“Thanks, Dante,” I told him.
“No problem.”
We hung up, and I was on my way down in the elevator. At the ground floor I looked around, wondering which way I would have gone if I had someone like Fang coming to pick me up. I would have gone out the back and met them in the alley between the building and the parking deck for the next apartment complex over.
I ran through the doorway into the alleyway, and I suddenly felt like I was standing on any of the streets in the industrial side of town. Everything back here was gray and dingy. The road was covered in a layer of filth that just seemed to settle every time it rained or with every passing car or truck. Everything was concrete. Sunlight didn’t quite make it all the way down between the buildings here.
I looked around to see if I could catch a glimpse of anything, but there was no sign of anyone behind the building. If she’d met Fang back here, they were long gone by the time I had even arrived at the apartment building.
“Hey, brother,” an old, scratchy voice called.
I looked around but didn’t see anyone.
“Hey, man,” he said again, and a tall, lanky homeless man stepped out of the shadows. “She said you might come looking for her,” he told me as he approached.
“Who did?” I asked.
“That fine little blonde,” he answered. “She told me to let you know what happened when you showed up,” he said.
“Alright, then, what happened?” I asked, a little irritated that he hadn’t just come out and said it yet.
“She got in the car with three other guys. There was a fourth, but he got shot. They stuffed him in the trunk and hauled ass out of here,” he told me.
“Do you know where they went?”
“I didn’t get a good look at which way they went from here, but they turned north up at the next street.” He nodded at where the alley opened up to the road about a block away.
“How long has it been since they left?”
“I don’t know. I’m not too good with time out here, but it couldn’t have been more than maybe ten or fifteen minutes, man. They just left.” He scratched his filthy, matted hair.
“Thanks for the info, man.” I fished out a twenty and handed it to him.
“No. Thank you, man,” he said, smiling and laughing at the money I’d handed him. He was probably going to go get something to take the edge off the heat of the day, maybe take away the ache in his bones from being on the concrete all day.
I hurried to the parking garage and called Dante back.
“That was fast,” he said when he answered.
“Yeah, a guy living by the dumpster out back saw the whole thing. Apparently she was jumped again,” I told him.
“Did he say if she was okay?”
“He made it sound like she was. She took one of my guns and apparently shot one of the guys trying to abduct her. They had to put him in the trunk according to my friend here.” I laughed.
“Right on. Did he happen to see where they went?”
“Yeah, he said he thought they turned north on the next street,” I told him. “Mean anything to you?”