Page 60 of From the Shadows

“Fucking right, I would.” He turns his attention to me “Eddie, call her. Get her up to speed and make sure she’s okay.”

“I doubt she wants to hear from me.” I sound like a petulant child, like a doleful prick, even to my own ears. But I connect the call and stand, moving toward the window for the illusion of privacy.

“Put it on speaker.”

I toss a glare at Christophe but do what he asks. It rings more times than I like and when Jess finally answers, she sounds not at all like herself.

At her feeble yeah, I launch in. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you sick?” I’m moving for the door before I even realize it. All I can think about is getting to her.

“I’m…” she pushes out a hard sigh. “I’m fine. If this is my call-up, I might need, uh, an escort or something. I don’t know. Shit, I don’t know.”

“What? Why?” I stop dead in my tracks at the uncertainty, the smallness of her voice. Silence yawns between us so stark for a moment I’d check our connection if I couldn’t see the call timer counting up. “Jessaline.” I hit the icon to switch to FaceTime, but she declines it immediately.

“Not the time to full name me, Eddie.”

“Hibou’s gone ghost,” Teague announces, typing rapid-fire at his own phone. “In the wind, his storage cleared. Every bin is cleared out of there and… Jesus.”

“What’s—” Jess and Christophe each start the question, though likely the meat of each is very different, Jess has no idea about the snakes Hibou’s been collecting, and I want to keep it that way. Protect her how I can until there’s time to straighten things out between us.

But Garrick returns, cutting them off. “Sir. The nursery’s been compromised.”

There’s no roar of disbelief, just lethal calm in Christophe’s question. “How? The alarm never sounded.”

“Correct. It did not, sir.”

“How’d he bypass it, Garrick? Where’s the staff who found it breeched? I want to talk to them immediately.” The lethal calm becomes more of a low-level growl.

“No staff, just me.” Every set of eyes go wide at that, except Christophe’s. His narrow at Garrick, and his whole face tightens with rage. “Sir. I understand that you’ve had concerns about me and I am more than willing to address each of those, but the immediate need outweighs that distrust. If you please?” After a rigid nod, Garrick continues, “As Miss Winnifred mentioned, Hibou had asked about the nursery, the security measures installed. I gave him nothing, sir, I assure you, but the man is clever. I took it upon myself to install a small surveillance camera not tied to the main network. The feed goes solely to my personal phone. Motion was detected earlier⁠—”

“And why are we just hearing this now? What if my child had been in there? Or Eddie’s daughter? What was so pressing you didn’t bring this up until fucking now?” The growl is becoming a roar.

“With full knowledge that no children were in residence, I attended to Mr. Yore’s wishes. When his whiskey was served, I checked the room, and while not ransacked, a handful of items were taken.”

Fuck. Fuck. I don’t even know what was taken or why, but there’s no question the blame for the delay in reporting falls squarely on me. “What was taken?”

Garrick turns to me, and his expression morphs to concern, or is that pity? “A car seat, sir. Not the infant seat, the toddler size. I’m sorry, Mr. Yore.”

“He… Why would he need that? Why are you apologizing to me?” Another call lights up my screen, and I dismiss it, only for it to light up again. “Jess, can you hold a minute?” Her agreement just registers when I hit go on the incoming call. “Chantal, this isn’t the best time, but⁠—”

“Eddie, where’s Evie?”

“With her mother, can I call y⁠—”

“She’s not. I came by to return Amie’s car like you told me to and she’s gone.”

“That wasn’t me. I didn’t fire you. I didn’t tell you to return the car. Do you know where Amie went?”

A sob filters through the speaker. “No. Amie’s here—she’s on the floor. She’s… Oh God, Eddie, I think she’s dead.”

I shove my hand through my hair as my world falls even further into Hell. “Where’s my daughter?” Ice drips from each of the three words.

“I don’t know. I just… don’t… I…”

Teague scoops my phone off the desk and gives Chantal very specific directions to call his number. To stay put. To not touch anything. Then he hands it back to me with Jess on the line. He’s the one maintaining conversation though. “Jessaline, love, your man’s having a moment. I need you to leave this morning’s conversation for later and get here to the estate. We need to pull everyone in.”

“I can’t get to my van, T.”

My head whips around at that. “Why not?”