Wildcard: Volume Three Read online

  Wildcard:Volume Three

  By Missy Johnson

  Copyright © 2013 Missy Johnson

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN

  First Printing: September 2014

  Chapter One

  Ryder

  What the fuck does he have on her?

  I’m sitting on the end of the bed, trying to pull myself together before Scarlett arrives. For a cool two hundred thousand, Tony is gone. Out of her life. But the niggling thoughts in the back of my head refuse to let me drop this.

  What is she hiding from me?

  I can’t just ask her—not without explaining that I’ve paid him off. And she would be pissed if she knew, especially since she’d made it clear that she didn’t want me involved. Besides, I don’t want her thinking she’s indebted to me in any way.

  I pick up my phone and call her. She should be here by now. The last I heard she was on her way to pick up Jake after her work meeting. That had been hours ago. It doesn’t take that long to get out there and back. Maybe I’m worrying for nothing, but with her psycho ex still sniffing around, I don’t want to take a chance.

  The phone rings through to voicemail. I click on text, and type out a message.

  Me: Everything okay?

  Half hour later and I still haven’t heard from her. Anxiety shifts in my stomach as I run my hand through my hair. Something isn’t right . . . What if he’s gone after her? With two hundred grand in his account, who knows what he’s capable of? He could’ve kidnapped both of them and been halfway to fucking Mexico by now.

  Grabbing my keys, I leave the hotel and flag down a taxi. I give the driver her address and wait impatiently as he navigates through the thick evening traffic. Does every fucking person in this city drive? It feels as if there are more cars on the road than there are people in Chicago.

  “Can you hurry it up a bit?” I say, impatiently glancing at my phone.

  Dark eyes narrow at me through the rear-vision mirror.

  “Are you going to drive this around for me when I lose my license? No? Then sorry, I stick to the speed limit.” He speaks in a thick Spanish accent.

  I scowl at him and return to my phone, trying to think of who I can call who might have some idea of where she is. I laugh, because there is nobody. Apart from Tony—and Jake—I know nobody in her life.

  She has no family, but she must have friends. How could I not have asked her this shit—especially with her wanker of an ex hanging around? I don’t trust that bloke in the slightest.

  I don’t even know where she fucking works. What kind of boyfriend am I? Wait—did I just call myself her boyfriend? We haven't really discussed what we are to each other, which is weird, because after I saw her with Tony I knew I wanted to be with her, and only her.

  Maybe if we'd had the Talk, then I might know a little bit more about her. What does she do when she's not working? Who are her friends? I know nothing, and I'm embarrassed by it. She could totally disappear off the face of the earth, and I'd never fucking know what happened to her. Just the thought of not seeing her again . . . I shudder. I don't even want to think about it.

  The taxi pulls up outside her house. I throw a few notes at the driver and jump out. He screeches off, leaving me alone to ponder my next move.

  I glance at the empty driveway and the closed drapes. I can already tell there is nobody home, but I walk up and knock on the door anyway. Silence greets me. I reach out and try the handle. It's locked.

  Spying the side gate, I walk around the path. It’s also locked, but low enough for me to jump over. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I walk the circumference of the house until I reach the back door. I’m not expecting it to be unlocked, so it doesn’t surprise me when the handle doesn’t turn.

  Fuck. I glance around. I walk over to the garden bed lining the side fence and pick up a rock. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I can't think of any alternative. I wince, and slam the rock against the panel of glass that lines the doorframe.

  Shards of glass fly everywhere. I toss the rock aside and carefully lean through to unlock the door. My arm comes out, streaked with blood. Not careful enough.

  I open the door and walk inside. I’m standing in the kitchen. Grabbing a dishcloth, I wrap it around my arm and apply pressure to the wound. It’s throbbing, but it’s the furthest thing from my mind.

  This is the first time I’ve been inside her place. I walk through the rooms, a shiver racing down my spine. It’s like a window into her life: the smallest little details tell me things I never knew—like the bananas sitting in the bowl on the table, or the coloured lists that are stuck to the door of the fridge, each outlining different aspects of Jake's treatment.

  I'm surprised at how clean her place is—or maybe it just magnifies what a mess mine is. You’d think living out of a hotel for half the year would make it easy to keep things clean. Not me. I see it as a challenge. That, and I have this thing about hotel staff rifling through my possessions. Call me crazy, but you'd be surprised at how much a pair of my briefs would go for on eBay—especially a well-worn pair.

  I walk through to the lounge room. It’s small, but cosy. I like that it feels comfortable. The furnishings are modest: an old brown vinyl couch, partially covered with a shaggy gray rug, and a flat-screen TV. I spy a laptop sitting on the coffee table. I sit down on the couch and lift her computer onto my lap.

  Please don’t be password protected.

  I sigh with relief when it isn’t.

  This isn’t snooping. I’m just looking for clues as to where she might be.

  I laugh, because even I’m not stupid enough to believe that. This is as much about figuring out what he has on her as it is about finding her.

  Does that make me a bad person, or simply human?

  Either way it doesn’t matter. Her computer tells me fuck-all.

  I find nothing on there that someone might want to conceal—not even porn—and I’m no closer to finding any of her friends or her work details. I move the laptop aside and pull out my phone.

  Maybe her Facebook will tell me something. I click on her profile, and then her friends list. She doesn’t have many—forty-five—and apart from the odd update, there is nothing there that is even remotely helpful.

  “Ryder?”

  Holy shit-fucking-bricks.

  My heart pounds as I jump up and spin around to see Scarlett standing there.

  Her eyes are red from crying, and her brow is furrowed in confusion—no doubt she’s trying to figure out what the fuck I’m doing. How do I explain this? I’ve essentially committed a crime: breaking and entering.

  “I, uh, couldn’t get onto you,” I say. I swallow, my face flushing because I know that it’s a weak-arse excuse.

  “So, you thought you’d break in and go through my things?” She walks over and snatches up her laptop, her eyes showing the hurt she’s feeling. Fuck.

  When she puts it like that, it sounds really bad.

  “I’m sorry. I was worried that Tony might’ve been hassling you,” I mutter. “Was he?”

  Her puffy eyes bring me back to the present. Something—besides me—is bothering her. So help me God, if that fucker has been hassling her, I’ll hunt him down and slice his balls off.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “My phone is dead, and the charger’s at the hotel . . . Jake’s in the hospital.”

  “Is he okay?” I step forward and wrap my arms around her.

  She falls into my embrace, sobbing.

  “Scar, what’s wrong? Is Jake okay?” I lift her chin, forcing her to look at me.

  Her green eyes are glassy as tears spill from them. “He’s got an infection. It’s serious. They think he might need a transplant.”

  “Fuck,” I mutter. I hold her close and let her cry. “He’ll be okay. He’s a strong kid.”

  “I’ve got to get back to him. I just came home for some of his things. He was asking for his bear.” She breaks down, sobbing in my arms. “He’s had that bear since he was a baby. He pretends he’s too old for it, but he always wants it when he’s scared.”

  “Come on. Let me help you. I’ll drive you there.”

  She gathers some of his things together and packs them into a Spider-Man backpack along with his bear. Just as we’re walking out the door she stops and turns around.

  “Shit, I forgot his PlayStation.” She moves toward the kitchen and I brace myself, waiting for the reaction I know is coming.

  “Ryder! What the hell happened?” She reappears around the entry of the kitchen, her eyes wide. Her gaze falls on my arm and she gasps. “You’re hurt!”

  “I’m fine,” I assure her. “I told you, I was worried. I had to get in somehow. I had images in my head of you being locked in a basement or something by your insane arsehole of an ex.”

  She shakes her head, shoving the game console that is sitting on the kitchen bench into her bag.

  “I don’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed.” She narrows her eyes as I follow her to the car. “What exactly
were you hoping to find on my laptop?”

  “Your collection of fisting porn.” I snigger, and she throws her keys at me. “I don’t know—a threatening email from your ex? Evidence that he’d kidnapped you, and maybe the location of his dungeon? I know almost nothing about you, Scar.”

  I climb into the driver’s seat and lock in my belt, starting the car and clicking it into reverse. It feels weird being on the wrong side of the car. How do people drive like this? Now is probably not a good time to tell her I don’t actually have an international driver’s licence.

  “Which hospital?” I ask, pulling out into the street.

  “Northwest. I’ll direct you.”

  She’s accepted my explanation for now, but I’m sure we’ll be discussing it later. Fuck, I hope the kid is okay. As we weave in and out of the thick evening traffic, I learn how bad she is at giving directions.

  “Can you try and give me a little bit of warning that I need to cross three lanes to make a turn?” I grumble.

  “So it’s my fault you don’t know how to drive?” she fires back.

  “I can drive just fine,” I laugh. “It’s your navigational skills that are questionable.”

  “For fuck’s sake, I’ll drive myself next time,” she mutters. “You’ll need to turn left into the hospital parking ramp in two miles,” she adds sweetly. “Is that enough notice for you?”

  I glower at her. “It’s better than the twenty meters’ notice I got for the last one.”

  ***

  The doctor asks to speak to Scar as soon as we walk into Jake’s room. She takes my hand and squeezes it, glancing past the doctor to Jake, who is sleeping.

  “Come with me?” she asks. I nod.

  We follow the doctor into a small room just off from the nurses’ station.

  “Take a seat, Scarlett.”

  We both sit down, and wait for him to do the same. He hesitates before he speaks, which scares the hell out of me. This isn’t good. I reach over and grasp her hand in mine. She offers me a small smile and then takes a deep breath.

  “How is he?”

  “He’s not good,” the doctor begins. “But it’s not his lungs that are our concern. He’s developed something we call an intussusception. Basically, his intestines have folded over on themselves like an accordion. We need to operate as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, God,” she gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “Will he be okay?”

  “We’ll do everything we can.” The doctor pushes a form across the desk. “This is a form saying you consent to the surgery.”

  Scar reaches for the nearest pen and scribbles her name along the bottom, not even bothering to read it.

  As I wrap my arms around her waist, her eyes grow wide. She’s shaking. It’s as though it’s just hit her how serious this is.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  She shrugs me off and pleads with the doctor. “Please, just make him okay,” she sobs, reaching out for his arm. “Can I see him again before you take him?”

  He nods. “We need to get him into surgery now, though.” He holds the door open for us. “I’ll give you a few moments.”

  ***

  Back in Jake’s room, I stand back. I exhale slowly, feeling defeated. I feel useless. There’s nothing I can do to make this better, other than to be there for her. I let her sit with him and listen as she whispers happy memories in his ear. It's heartbreaking, seeing her like this. I hate seeing Jake sick and I hate the pain it puts her through. This is tearing me apart.

  The doctor walks back in and nods at me. It’s time. I step forward and pull Scar against my body, wrapping my arms around her. She holds on to my hands as we both watch the orderly wheel Jake out of the room.

  “Come on,” I say. “We can wait in the waiting room.”

  “You don't have to do—”

  “Stay?” I laugh. “Of course I'm going to bloody stay with you.” I lace my fingers through hers and lead her down to the lifts. I press the button and wait until the doors open, letting her walk in first. The doors close behind me.

  “I'm scared,” she whispers. Her eyes level with mine.

  I cup her chin and lean down for a kiss.

  She smiles, her eyes closing momentarily. “I'm glad you’re here.”

  “Me too.”

  The waiting room is cold and sterile, and I'm surprised that it's nearly empty. Rows of seats line the walls. A television displaying the latest news sits on the far wall. We sit down and wait—because what else is there to do a waiting room?

  Scar rests her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her and kiss her forehead. Her eyes are on the television, but I don't think she's paying that much attention. I can almost see the thoughts click over in her head.

  Minutes turn into hours, with no news about Jake. We're both getting restless, but I'm trying my hardest to keep her spirits up. If I say the line ‘no news is good news’ one more time, I swear kill myself—or she'll do it for me.

  “So, you were in my house.”

  I turned to her, surprised. That came out of nowhere. I was kind of hoping that I’d managed to escape this conversation, but apparently not.

  “I told you, I got worried when you wouldn't answer my calls.”

  “So you thought breaking and entering was a good solution?” She arches her eyebrow and waits for my answer.

  “In hindsight? No. But at the time I wasn't thinking straight.”

  “I don't know whether to be angry at you for invading my privacy, or be touched that you care so much.”

  She leans her head on my shoulder again and resumes watching the TV. Guilt washes over me. I feel like a fraud, because it was just as much about trying to uncover her secret as it was about making sure she was okay.

  Chapter Two

  Scarlett

  It’s been hours.

  I’ve been pacing the waiting room while Ryder watches. He keeps telling me to sit down, that I need to stay strong for Jake, and I know he’s right, but the mere thought of losing my boy crushes any hope I have at the moment. The only thing I can do is move, and wait, and hope to freaking God that he’ll be okay.

  Ryder approaches me holding a cup of coffee from the vending machine. I glance back to where he’d been sitting, surprised. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d gone. I take the steaming cup and drink. It tastes like tar, but I force myself to drink it because I need to stay awake.

  “What time is it?” I ask, placing the empty cup in the rubbish.

  “One thirty.”

  “He’s been in there for hours.” I lace my hands behind my neck, the worry refusing to leave my head. I’m going over and over the worst-case scenarios. “Something must be wrong, Ryder. How can they still be working on him?”

  “Scar.” He nods towards the corridor. I turn and see Doctor Hawthorne walking over to us. I push the cup into Ryder’s hand and run over to the doctor. He’s smiling.

  Oh my God, he’s smiling.

  My legs buckle under me. Ryder swoops in and wraps his arm around my waist, holding me up. I’m crying uncontrollably, because the relief I’m feeling is almost unbearable.

  “He’s okay,” he begins. “The surgery went very well, and he’s in recovery. He’s still not out of the woods, but he’s a strong little boy. At the moment he’s stable. You can go and sit with him if you like.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, smiling through my tears. I’m aching all over. Every part of me is exhausted, but all I want to do is see my boy. I press my phone into Ryder’s hands. “Can you call Penny? She’ll want to know he’s okay.”

  “Of course. I’ll be in there in a minute.”

  ***

  Walking in to Jake’s room, I want to cry again. My boy is hooked up to so many machines, with tubes going everywhere. I move closer to his bed and sit down, taking his tiny hand in mine.

  “Hey baby,” I whisper.

  He cracks open an eye and smiles at me. “A few more minutes, Mom. Please, it’s the weekend,” he mumbles.

  “You sleep all you want today.” I smile through my tears and reach up to his head, running my fingers through his short, dark hair. “I love you, baby.”

  Chapter Three

  Ryder

  “I appreciate you staying with me.”