She giggled and poked him in the ribs. “Like a painting of an angel?”
“Hey, I’m new at this. ”
“Eddie Jessup, new at women? I don’t think so. ”
“All right, yeah, I know how to pay a compliment. I can appreciate a pretty face. But I’ve never been floored by one, and Laura, you floor me. ”
She grew serious. “You floor me, too, Eddie. I…You’ve blown me away. I had no idea, you, this…”
She ran out of words, but it was okay. It was enough. He was a patient man.
The ringing phone startled them.
He frowned. “Who the hell is that?”
“Can you let it go?” she asked, but the look they shared said they knew he couldn’t. Late-night phone calls were too unusual—and too alarming—to send to voice mail.
He scampered naked to the living room, where he’d dropped his cell on the table with his keys and wallet. He checked, and the Caller ID was a weird one. It couldn’t be a telemarketer at ten P. M. , could it? “Hello?”
“Is this Jessup Brothers Construction?”
“Yeah,” he said warily, peering at the clock on the microwave. “It’s way after hours, though. ”
He strolled back into the bedroom and gave Laura a look that said they were far from done.
“Apologies for the late hour, but I’m calling from Indian Rock, from the urgent care clinic here?”
She’d said it like a question, so he said, “Yeah,” even though he wasn’t entirely sure of the place. He’d been to Indian Rock a few times through the years, but those late-night clinics all looked the same. Single story, lights on late, sign with a red cross out front.
Laura gave him a questioning look, mouthing, Who is it? and he could only shrug.
“We weren’t sure who to call,” the woman said, and by the time she finished telling him her reasons, he’d dashed outside, grabbed their clothes from beside the hot tub, and begun tugging on his jeans.
“So who was it?” The question burst from Laura the moment he clicked off. She was sitting up in bed, holding the sheet to her chest, where she’d been avidly watching his every move.
“Some clinic in Indian Rock. They’ve got an anonymous girl there, unconscious. ” He pulled on a clean shirt. “I’m heading over. ”
“Right now?”
“She’s just a little thing. They think she’s from Sierra Falls. ”
She hopped out of bed, dressing quickly. “Why’d they call you?”
“They think I might know her. She’s wearing a shirt with a Jessup Brothers logo. A soccer shirt,” he recalled. They’d donated money for the peewee jerseys last year.
It wasn’t even a question that she go with him, and he loved the feel of that. Like they were a team. “I told you we’d be a duo,” he said as they hit the road.
“You were right. ” She’d put her hand on his thigh the moment they’d gotten in his truck, and she gave it a squeeze. “Do you think they called Billy, too?”
“I assume the sheriff was the first person they called. I didn’t think to ask. ”
“We’ll see when we get there, I guess. ”
He filled her in on the remaining details. A girl, approximately six to eight years old, was sitting poolside at the Indian Rock Casino when she began to have trouble breathing. “The hotel called 911,” he finished, “and you know the rest. ”
“Who could it be?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think of anyone who’d vacation there. ”