Henry hung up. He punched in Archie’s number. “Pick up,” he muttered to himself, “pick up, goddamn you.” It rang and rang. Then went to voice mail. Henry’s mouth was dry. He hung up and immediately called the dispatcher and asked to be patched through to the patrol car assigned to Archie’s security detail. He had to consciously relax his fist around the phone—worried he’d snap it in two. He wanted Archie to be drunk, high, passed out on the couch, in the shower, ignoring the phone, fast asleep, anything. But this felt wrong. This felt very wrong. The dispatcher came back after a minute. Her voice was tense. “We’re not getting a response,” she said.

Henry closed his eyes, anger flooding his body, expanding his chest, filling him. Goddamn her. The psycho bitch had done it again. “Send backup there,” Henry spat into the phone. “Now.”

The front door to the club swung open and Claire came jogging out, holding up her phone, face stricken. “There you are,” she said, out of breath. “I can’t get ahold of Susan. The patrol detail at her mother’s house said they’d been told she was spending the night at Archie’s.”

“Told?” Henry sputtered. “Told by fucking whom?”

“Apparently the chief got a text from Susan’s phone,” Claire said, walking past him toward the car. “He relayed the message to her protection detail and to her mother. Everyone was so busy, no one thought to question it.”

Henry jammed his phone in his pocket and ran after Claire. A string of expletives were at the tip of his tongue, but he reminded himself of the baby and gritted his teeth instead. Claire climbed into the passenger side of the car, as Henry got behind the wheel.

“That fucking cunt,” Claire said. “If she fucking hurts them, I swear to fuck I’ll fucking shoot her my-goddamn-self.”

Chapter 38

CHAPTER

38