“Call me paranoid, but she just showed up out of the blue. And she’s not beating down the door to see Chelsea after she was fucking kidnapped.”
“I’ll tell him,” I reply.
They say their goodbyes and head to the other house. I stay out on the patio, and about fifteen minutes later, the door opens, and Nolan steps outside. He takes a seat beside me, and the look of fear he gives me makes me laugh for the first time in a week. “I’m not going to kick your ass, Nolan.”
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “You sure?”
“If I were going to, you never would have made it to round two. Much less three.”
Nolan finally turns to look at me, smiling from ear to ear. “Four.”
“Is Chelsea still moving?”
“Yes,” he laughs. “She’s getting a snack. Where’s everyone else?”
“They went to the other house to get the bikes. I have a question before she comes out here.” He nods. “Can you look into Baxter, Roland, and Amber?”
His brows furrow. “Anything specific?”
“Just check their stories. I just have a bad feeling that I can’t shake.”
“I get that. Do we have a last name on Amber?”
“Prudich. I don’t have an exact location of where she’s from, just that she’s from the bible belt.”
“I can work with that. I take it you aren’t telling Chelsea?”
“There’s no reason to worry her yet. And finding out that any of them betrayed her is going to hurt.”
“Do you think they did?”
I sigh and sit back in my chair. “I don’t know. Some things just aren’t sitting right with me. Charlie admitted that Brady was a plant to keep Chelsea away from Axel and Cole. What’s to say he didn’t plant the others?”
Nolan nods. “I agree, but why would he let Baxter’s mom save her?”
“Maybe that’s not how it was supposed to go because the mom isn’t involved, and they just went with it once she was out.”
“And you think Amber is a plant for information,” Nolan guesses. “Has Chelsea told her who we are?”
“No, but Charlie would have.”
“I’ll start on it now. I can run it in the background, so she doesn’t know yet.”
“Thanks, Nolan.”
He smiles and stands up. “No problem. I think it’s a good idea.”
Nolan goes into the house, and I try not to second guess myself about looking into the people in her life. But she only has them, and it would make sense for one of them to be sending information to Charlie.
I just hope she doesn’t get mad at me if I’m wrong about this.
* * *
A coupleof hours after the guys get back with the bikes, we start going over a game plan on how to deal with Vivian. She said she was willing to talk, but that can change when someone is in front of you.
“Maybe I can go,” Chelsea suggests.
Axel shakes his head. “It’s not safe for you to be out, and this woman knew about the abuse. She didn’t do anything to help.”