“The police are going to check his phone log and see that you called.”
“Yeah, well, this won’t be the last time,” she said as his voice mail answered. “Hey, it’s me. The police are at your place. What in the hell happened? Call me back.”
She frowned and hung up the phone, leaving it out on the counter, afraid she might not hear it when he returned her call.
Marcus was a flake when it came to answering his phone, especially when he was in the middle of working on one of his masterpieces.
That wasn’t the case now, though. He was probably hurt, and God knew where.
“His phone is probably off, especially if he’s on the run from the cops,” Ashton said. “If Marcus was really smart, he would have ditched it altogether. All it takes is a warrant or knowing the right people to turn the phone’s GPS on so we can track and find him.”
“You know the right people? The kind that won’t require a warrant?” she asked as hope fluttered in her belly. “You are here to help me, right? To save me from this kidnapper, who broke into my house. Finding Marcus, so we can help him, and get answers would be the smart thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
Ashton’s lips twitched. “You’re still trying to manipulate me?”
“It almost worked when I was seventeen. Not one of my proudest moments, by the way, but I was running out of time. You were itching to leave town.”
“Ah yes. You were trying to blackmail me into taking you to bed by suggesting that you’d tell your brother that we already had, even though we hadn’t.”
She grinned. “You almost gave in. We both wanted it, Ash. You can’t deny that. Besides, if we’d gotten caught, you could have always blamed it on me.”
“I would have taken the heat for both of us,” he said before taking a bite of his burger.
“So, you know someone, right? Someone who can help us find Marcus.”
He didn’t answer as he chewed.
“Maybe the FBI or one of the Bennetts can work their magic…for me?”
She was laying it on thick, but she had to. Ashton didn’t look as though he was about to budge at all.
“He could have the answers we need. He could know who’s behind this, and the longer we wait, the bigger the chance he might die if the killer catches him first.”
“Well, when you put it like that…” Ashton wiped the grease from his hands and pulled out his phone just as two people walked out of the darkened rows of the supply room.
She gasped and spun around just as Ashton grabbed his gun. He was out of his seat in two seconds flat.
Startled, Stella’s kids stopped in their tracks to find Ashton pointing a gun in their direction. Their hands flew up as fear froze their feet.
“You know them, Stella?”
“Yeah, these are two of my college kids I was telling you about,” Stella said, resting her hand on top of his gun and pushing it to point at the ground.
“Michelle, Avery, what are you guys doing here?”
“You promised we could spend more time on our art,” Avery said as Peter and Conrad appeared from the same area.
“Do your kids make it a habit of breaking in?” Ashton asked.
“The door was locked,” Avery said.
Peter and Conrad paused in their tracks, their gazes going from Stella’s to Ashton’s. “Ms. Stella, is everything okay here?”
“Yeah.”
“No.” Ashton was quick to answer as he turned to Stella. “They could get hurt. You need to cancel your class and send them home.”
“You make the call to find Marcus, and I’ll explain,” Stella said, walking over to the group.
