“Looks like it wasn’t a car accident he was involved in. Ashley fought back,” Bex said. She sounded almost proud.
“And this asshole had his story all worked out,” Jordan said, shaking his head.
“Maybe it was all just a coincidence, these two guys. They probably don’t have anything to do with each other,” Caleb reasoned.
“That’s totally possible,” Max agreed with his oldest son. “Bex, you said you saw this blond character in the bar before?”
She nodded. “Yeah. The night we got here. Caleb and I went to have a drink.”
“It could be absolutely nothing,” Max said, “or the two of them could be working together. Who knows? Regardless, we ought to tell Ames about it. The more information he has the better.”
Lindsay came in with several sheets of paper. “Here are your discharge instructions,” she said sidestepping the crowd that had gathered in the room. “I just need your signature on this page and you’re good to go.”
Theo tried to grasp the pen in her injured hand. She scrawled her name across the bottom of the paper, then handed it back to the nurse. “That wouldn’t stand up in court,” she joked.
Lindsay flashed her a smile. “Go home. Take care of yourself. If you have any questions at all, you give us a call.”
When she left the room, Jordan took his coat from the back of a chair and draped it around Theo’s shoulders. Then he picked up her backpack and took her hand. “Thanks for helping us with the vehicles. I think I need to get T.J. home now. Will you tell Indie we’ll come get her in the morning?”
“I’ll tell her, but that will only work if Odie has it in her mind to give her up,” Max responded with a smile.
Theo lay in bed. Jitterbug and Mac were curled up next to her, and Tango, who wasn’t usually the cuddliest of cats, had jumped onto the bed and was currently making biscuits on Theo’s belly. The orange tabby purred and watched her with round, green eyes.
“I know I’m a poor substitute for Indigo, but you’re the one who decided to come and hang out with me.” The cat yawned. “I’ll try not to take that personally.”
Jordan had wrapped her arm in plastic, then helped her take a brief but much needed bath. After she put on clean pajamas, she ate a snack of ham and cheese and took one of the pain pills she’d been given.
When Ashley asked her to call Katie, Theo figured she’d just go through Ashley’s contact list and find this person. What she hadn’t remembered was to ask Ashley for her password. She’d been thinking about it since the ride home, and as tired as she was, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to sleep without first making that phone call.
Jordan walked into the room, fresh from a shower of his own. He realized Theo was still awake, and it only took him a moment to see that she was still chewing on the phone dilemma.
“We’ll track down Wyatt in the morning,” he suggested. “Either he’ll know how to get ahold of Katie, or he’ll know Ashley’s password. Somehow we’ll get the message to this person.”
“I wish I had thought about it when I talked to him earlier.”
Ashley had given Theo Wyatt’s phone number in case of emergency. When the two of them had been brought to the hospital, Theo looked his contact information up in her own phone and placed the call. It would have been a perfect time to ask him about Katie or how to access Ashley’s contact list but delivering the news that his girlfriend had been assaulted had been first and foremost on her mind at the time.
“We’ll figure it out. What’s with Tango?”
“I think he misses Indigo. His favorite human is gone, so he’s lowered his standards. He’s slumming it here with me.”
Jordan climbed into bed and reached over to scratch behind Tango’s right ear. “Dude,” he told the cat, “you don’t know how good you’ve got it.”
Not even ten minutes after he’d come to bed, Theo finally succumbed to exhaustion and the medication. He rolled over onto his side and studied her face.
“I could’ve lost you tonight,” he said. He reached up and lightly touched the bruises that had popped out against the fairness of her skin. Jordan thought about the man’s hands around Theo’s neck and the idea was almost more than he could handle.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere …” Theo responded, her voice raspy and almost inaudible.
Jordan leaned over and pressed a kiss on her mouth. She tried to reciprocate the gesture, but she was just too tired.
“Promise?” he asked her.
“Promise.”
Jordan turned the light off and listened to Tango purr as he drifted off to sleep.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. It didn’t feel like he’d been asleep for very long when Theo sat up in bed and barked, “Katie!”
Jordan startled awake and tried to push the cobwebs from his brain. “What?”
“Ouch,” Theo rasped, reaching up to touch her throat. “Oh, man, that hurts.”
Jordan thought Theo’s voice sounded worse than it had when they’d gone to bed. “What in particular?”
“Everything.”
Theo turned her bedside lamp on, then blinked in the brightness. “I just remembered. Ashley’s dad lives in Katy, Texas. It’s not a girl’s name,” she said. “It’s a place. I think she was giving me her password.” Both her phone and Ashley’s were side by side next to the bed. Jordan had dug up an extra charge cord, and both of them were plugged in. Theo grabbed Ashley’s phone and brought the screen to life. “There are six characters,” she said. “K-A-T-Y-T-X.” She typed in the corresponding numbers for each letter. 5-2-8-9-8-9.
“That’s it!” Theo croaked when the phone unlocked.
“You really are Nancy Drew. What time is it?”
“Two thirty-seven.”
“It’s what, an hour later in Texas?”
