“No. On the way to your apartment, we got a call from Stud that he found Lucky.”
“Bear hurt Lucky because he must have known Lucky was going to tell Stud what was going to happen in the morning. But why Calder? It doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t even know what I’ve been doing. He would have been in danger if anyone found out I supplied the information for the arrests. But no one has been arrested yet. No one has been burned yet. Could it have been someone on the task force?”
“We’re checking them out, but we don’t think so. Those agents are highly screened. Not only that, but I know most of them, and I don’t think anyone would have taken the chance of ruining their career for a small-town bust. None of those the task force were going to arrest are traffickers. Most of them want their own fix. What little they have left isn’t enough to kill a man for.”
“Have you eaten? You want me to cook you something?” Killyama offered.
“No, I couldn’t eat.” She rubbed her arms. “Something happened to him. I feel it.” Crazy Bitch bit her lip, trying to hold back her tears.
Killyama sat down on the coffee table in front of her. “Sex Piston called me. Stud won’t let her leave the house, though she wants to be here with you. She said, as soon as she can, she’ll be here.”
Crazy Bitch nodded, her mind on Calder, going back to when she left him at the building site.
“I didn’t even say goodbye. I told Sex Piston to tell him I was going home. I’m trying to remember if I told him I loved him this morning when we woke up, and I can’t.”
“I’m sure you did.” Killyama took her cold hand in hers.
Whatever had happened to Calder was bad, so bad she could practically feel him calling for her.
The night was endless as she intermittently walked around her apartment. She found the shirt he had worn last night and took hers off, putting his on, and then changing her leggings to faded jeans.
Going back into the living room, she saw that Train had made coffee. Pouring herself a cup, she sat at the counter, staring at her phone, waiting for it to ring.
“You want to go rest? I’ll wake you if we hear anything.” Killyama came to stand at the counter next to Train.
“No. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to sleep knowing he could be hurt. I don’t want to be asleep and wake up to you telling me he’s dead.” She choked back her tears. “Calder, Stud, and Sex Piston were going to tell Star she was his daughter tonight. Did you know?”
“I suspected. She looks like Calder.”
“Yes, she does. She has his personality, too.” A sob escaped her. She put her hand up, smothering it. “I love him… so much. You know, it surprised me how much I love him. I didn’t expect to.”
“I know you do. Calder knows, too.”
“I hope so. I was just kidding with those pictures of Rider and Moon to make him jealous. I like it when he spanks me. No one’s ever spanked me before. No one cared enough. My mom didn’t care, none of my foster parents, none of the men.”
“If you needed a spanking to know I love you, all you had to do was ask.”
Killyama’s teasing made Crazy Bitch laugh, causing a chain reaction that had Killyama coming around the counter to hold her as she cried into her shoulder.
“We’ll find Calder. We’ll find him.”
34
It was the waiting that was the hardest. The first night of Calder’s disappearance was hard. The second was pure hell. Hope waned away hour by hour until there was only a flickering light remaining by the end of the second night.
Crazy Bitch stared down at her notebook through blurry eyes. She had fallen asleep at the counter for four hours during the day, but had woken up when Train’s phone had rung. It hadn’t been news about Calder. It had been about Lucky. He had survived the night and was in critical but stable condition, and the doctor thought he would make it.
Crazy Bitch thought of a name and added it to her list.
“Whose name did you add?” Sex Piston asked. She had come over that morning after taking the kids to school, telling Stud they would be safe there and could go to her parents’ house when school was released. She had bluntly told her husband that she was staying with Crazy Bitch until Calder was found.
“I added Harmon Myers. I remembered he was standing next to Mrs. Carpenter.” Crazy Bitch used an ink pen to point at the name. She had come up with the idea to make a list of all the people who had attended the groundbreaking. One of them had to have been the person who had taken Calder.