"I figured that much. They're going to move their operation elsewhere for sure."
He nodded, frowning. "Yeah, one step forward, two or three steps back."
"Remember, we still have Panetti informing for us, though. He'll be able to help us find out where these guys have gone."
"And now we have more leads if Kendrick can help us ID the kids who were buying here at the school earlier," Ben added.
"Yeah. We'd better get to the hospital to see how he's doing."
"We'd better do that, yeah. Maybe we'll be able to get there before he goes into surgery. I'll get the yearbooks, you drive."
"Sounds like a plan."
Chapter Fifteen
Vivienne
I watched Everett go with a mixture of sadness and pride. Obviously, I wasn't pleased that our time together had been interrupted, but I knew it was for a good reason. And seeing the determination on his face when he talked about catching the drug dealers made me feel proud of him, proud to have a noble, honorable man like him in my life.
I also felt guilty about misjudging him before, about making assumptions and thinking that he’d ditched me and stood me up to go drinking with his friend. Now that I knew the truth, I felt bad.
I'd been only too happy to volunteer to help him with Jane if he needed me to. He had a lot on his plate at the moment, and I wanted to do what I could to help ease the burden.
I really felt like talking to someone about all of this, so I decided to call up Kerry to see how things were going. The thought of calling Angie to see how she fared with that guy last night did cross my mind as well, but I figured she might be pretty hungover after all the drinking she had been doing. I shot Kerry a text to see if she had time for quick a Skype session. Seeing her face when we talked always made it feel like she wasn’t so far away. She immediately returned my text, and so I made my way to my laptop and booted up my computer.
"Hey girl!" I said as she answered.
"Hey there, Viv," she replied, smiling. I turned my webcam on so that she could see me, too.
"Wow," she remarked. "You're looking happy! What's going on?"
I chuckled and blushed a little.
"I know that look. It's a guy, isn't it?" she continued.
"Yeah, it's a guy."
She beamed a broad ear-to-ear grin at me. "It's that hot guy from across the street, am I right?"
I nodded, and couldn't help beaming out a huge smile myself.
"Wow, Viv! What was his name again? He was that high school principal guy, right?"
"Everett. Everett James."
"Ooh, that's a sexy-sounding name."
"Yeah, well it fits then because he’s sexy as hell," I informed her.
"Well go on! Don't hold back, give me all of the juicy details!"
"I don't know about juicy, but there are plenty of details. Remember I told you I babysat his kid?"
"Yeah, I do."
"She's such a little cutie pie, seriously."
"You told me that already. I want the details about the dad. And what about her mom? Did you find out anything about that?"