Nick had no idea who she was talking about, and really didn’t care right now. What he had to do was think of some way to get a message to Addie’s grandmother. What could he tell Mr. Bentley so the man wouldn’t think he was scamming him? “Tell him that I need to speak with Mrs. English. I have some…four million, seven hundred thousand questions for him.” It was the amount of money in the second bag that they’d found with Addie. The phone was put down again, and within seconds a different woman came back.
“Who is this?” Nick told her who he was. “That means nothing to me, young man. What do you know about that kind of money?”
“Mrs. English?” He was corrected on her name. “And so you know, I never said that was a money amount. I just told you I had that many questions to ask you, that’s all.”
There was silence at the other end for so long that Nick thought for sure she’d hung up on him. If it hadn’t been for the loud voices in the background, he might have believed it. But when the sound was cut off abruptly, he knew that she’d either gone to another part of the house or had put everyone out of the kitchen.
“Is she all right?” He told her that she’d been stabbed multiple times but was in stable condition for now. “I can’t come to her. If I do then he’ll come for her too. I…I need to know that she’s in good hands, Mr. Stark. She’s all I have.”
“You mean Joel Delaney.” She told him that was right. “Addie told me that he is the worst kind of monster and I wasn’t to tell him where she is. But she’s in good hands. No one knows who she is but me and the men I work with, and I trust them with my life. Hers too.”
“I’m going to give you a number to call me on. I want you to use it no matter the time. The man who will answer, his name is Bentley. How you got his name in all this is beyond me, but you scared him. Bentley is a very cautious man, and you did well in making him nervous. I’d like to know how you did that sometime.” He told her it would be his pleasure to tell her.
After he got the number she hung up on him. Nick didn’t know if she was afraid her phone was bugged or not, but the call could already have been traced. A few minutes later a nurse at the desk told him he had a call. Nick took it, thinking it was Steele or one of the others.
“Move her. Now.” It was all the man said before the line went dead. Nick handed the phone back to the nurse and called Steele using his personal cell phone. He told him what had happened and who he’d talked to, ending with the man telling him he had to move her.
“I’ll make some arrangements. Tell no one. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ll get her out within the hour.” Steele could move mountains with the kind of money he had, and Nick knew that. “Don’t be alarmed if a few of our friends show up. They’re going to help you. Carlton is in charge and…Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he has an idea to get her out and I trust him.”
“If you do, then…he’s here now. I’ll call you back.” Nick looked at Carlton and Donny. If there was ever a more mismatched pair of friends, Nick wasn’t sure he’d want to meet them. “She’s in surgery still. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. That way if it comes out, you’re a free and clear guy.” Donny laughed. “She a looker? I could use a nice looking girl for my upcoming vid.”
“You stay away from her. People are looking for her.” Donny nodded. “But seriously, what are you going to do?”
Carlton told him to just sit there and be a good boy. “We are going to get her out of here with the help of some of our friends that have passed on as we have. They will…never you mind, young man. Just suffice it to say that there will be a great distraction while we move. Once she’s outside, there will be a van waiting for her, and then we’ll take her to the big house. Steele is hiring a good doctor to come in and keep an eye on her for you. After that, young man, we’re going to be fine. And so will she.”
Nick had no idea what the plan was, and a huge part of him thought that was a good idea. However, it didn’t lessen his fear on it all falling apart. Carlton was old, like centuries old, and Donny was just a kid…one that had been around for a while, but still only a kid.
About ten minutes later a doctor came down the hall. Nick watched the man walking and it looked to him like he was drunk. But the closer he got, the more he realized the man was confused. As he sat down after asking Nick if he was with the Jane Doe, he looked at him with dazed eyes.
“She’s just gone. I mean…we brought her out and the nurses started screaming. I went to look and…and she was gone.” Nick asked him who was gone, because there was no way the ghosts could have pulled this plan off that quickly. “The Jane Doe. The nurses said…well, never mind what they said they saw, but when I went back to the room where she was being transported into to recover, I just…I thought for sure that…something is very wrong here.”