Chapter 2
1612 Words
Edward’s phone vibrated, interrupting the sound of his foot, tapping the floor in agitated impatience. He grabbed it off the table in front of him in a heartbeat. He swiped his thumb over the screen and had it pressed to his ear in the next second.
An almost suppressed snort pierced the quiet room from Trey. It was closely followed by Gabriel’s soft chuckle, which he didn’t bother to hide.
Edward ignored both men. Even Trey’s comment towards Gabriel that Edward would need a sedative soon didn’t deter his attention from the call he had just answered.
“What did you find out?” He said into the phone.
In response to his question, to his irritation, he received another snort. From Trick this time. Edward ignored that one as well and impatiently waited for the man to talk. His foot resumed the tapping against the tiled, polished floor.
His eyes never left the woman still out cold on the couch. He had covered her with a sheet from the bedroom. It had marginally made him feel like he was doing something and not just hopelessly waiting for news and for the woman to eventually wake up.
It had already been two hours since Trey had sent Trick the picture of the woman. Surely his friend had found something, Edward thought.
“Well, the good news is, she has never been arrested by the police. Her face is not in any of the law enforcement databases I have access to.”
Edward nodded. “Ok. And what is the bad news?” he asked, even though he could hazard a guess.
He looked up and saw Trey and Gabriel lean forward, equally curious about what Trick had discovered. Edward shot a glance at the woman to confirm she was still out for the count. Then he put the phone on speaker and set it on the table just as Trick spoke.
“I can’t find anything on her.” He paused. “At least not using only a picture of her. I need more information to work with.”
“If we had more information, we would have given it to you, dammit!” Edward snapped before he could rein in his rising anger.
Gabriel shot him a look but didn’t comment on his outburst.
Trick went on without missing a beat, “Finding information on a person is not like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. There is no magic or tricks involved. No pun intended.”
“But are you not supposed to be the man on top of this digital s**t?” Trey commented.
A snort rang out of the phone’s speaker. “I don’t tell you how to spice your dishes, Trey…”
“Okay,” Edward interjected, before any bickering could begin. He gave the two men in the room a hard look to silence them, in case they had ideas to say anything else. On the phone he said, “So what are you suggesting?”
There was a few seconds of silence, as though Trick was really thinking about his response before he gave it.
“Wait for the woman to wake up. Get her name, send it to me and I will do the rest.”
He didn’t like that option. It sounded like more hours of waiting hopelessly. But Edward understood that was their only option. He thanked Trick, reminded him not to inform Lorenzo yet, then ended the call.
All three men remained quiet for a while. Each lost in their own thoughts. Then Gabriel asked, “We take turns sleeping?”
They all just couldn’t shut their eyes and sleep away for hours. Not without knowing who the woman was and what her story was.
They all obviously still remembered how Lorenzo had woken up with a letter opener pressed to his throat in the middle of the night.
True, in Lorenzo’s case, he had abducted Abigail, and the woman had every reason to threaten his life, but it still served as a lesson to never sleep with an unpredictable woman close by.
Edward contemplated the offer to take shifts on keeping watch while the others rested. He didn’t feel it was fair to deprive Trey and Gabriel from their sleep. If there was something they all respected, it was a good sleep.
He had brought this problem to their doorstep. Even if technically she had stumbled into his path, he still felt the conviction it was his responsibility to take care of it.
“You two can go ahead and catch some sleep. I will stay here and keep watch. In fact, let me call the manager to bring over two keys so you can each have privacy and rest.”
The penthouse had an extra room apart from the master bedroom. But he didn’t want the guys debating whether to share a bed, which was an option he knew they both hated. Or who should take the main room? It was easier to just let them each have a separate room.
Gabriel and Trey shared a look before they both gave Edward an incredulous stare.
“You sure you didn’t hit your head in that accident?” Gabriel asked.
Next to the doctor, Trey shook his head and chuckled. “There is no way in hell we are leaving you with an unknown woman you found in handcuffs and looked like a cast from the series The Walking dead.” He shook his head again. “That is not how we do things, Edward, you know that.”
“And Lorenzo will have our asses if he finds out,” Gabriel added.
Edward ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He had been foolish to think they would agree with that idea. “Ok, fine. I’ll take the first watch. Go sleep.”
To his frustration, instead of leaving the room, both men made themselves comfortable right there.
Gabriel took the carpeted floor and Trey stretched himself out on the other couch, using the armrest like a pillow. They both pointedly refused to look at him and closed their eyes, pretending to sleep.
“Idiots,” he murmured under his breath and made himself comfortable on the remaining couch, ready to watch people sleep for hours.
His military training came in handy even in times like these, but Edward knew it was still going to be some long dragging hours of doing nothing.
~~~
The sounds in the room were already imprinted on his mind by the time dawn stretched across the sky outside his penthouse windows.
Edward knew which sounds were Gabriel’s soft snoring and which belonged to Trey. The woman was almost completely silent, but he could still pick out her even breathing.
That was why his eyes snapped to the couch the second the sound changed.
He saw her eyelids twitch a few times before she finally opened her eyes.
Edward didn’t move. In fact, he held his breath and just watched her blink a few times to clear her vision.
He could tell when her sight was finally clear, because the woman looked around in confusion. Still, he didn’t move a muscle or say a word. He just observed.
Soon enough, her eyes landed on the two men fast asleep, then her eyes landed on him. A look of alarm flushed through her eyes, followed quickly by confusion and apprehension.
She opened her mouth to speak, but only a croaked sound made it out. Her attempt to clear her throat woke the other two men in the room and within seconds, she had three pairs of eyes on her.
The alarm in her eyes intensified. More so when she looked down at her body and then the second IV bag still connected to her wrist.
She was visibly panicking. They all saw it, and Gabriel immediately moved to act as the professional doctor. “Easy,” he said with a raised palm and soft voice, as though he was trying to calm a scared horse.
It didn’t seem to work.
Edward stood, intending to move closer and try to get through her haze of panic, but Gabriel shot him a look that said he wasn’t helping.
He hesitated a moment. Then silently he nodded and stepped away instead; towards the window. Giving Gabriel room to do his thing.
“My name is Gabriel. I am a doctor. I need you to calm down so I can check you and make sure everything is ok. You were out for a long time.”
The woman looked at Gabriel, then her eyes darted towards Edward.
“Don’t worry. No one’s here to harm you. We just want to know what happened to you.”
She looked down at herself again. The furrow between her eyebrows deepened.
By now, Gabriel had reached her and was gently checking her vitals like a professional.
Edward and Trey both just watched. Leaving Gabriel to take the lead. For now.
A few minutes passed in silence. Then Gabriel spoke again. “Do you want to tell us your name?”
Silence met the question. Edward didn’t like it. He bit his tongue to stop himself from saying anything. He told himself to trust Gabriel’s approach.
“Ok,” Gabriel said with a nod. “Can you at least tell me what happened to you so I know what to treat you for?”
The woman only seemed to look more confused and troubled. She looked down at herself again.
Finally, she opened her mouth to speak. “I don’t know.” The words floated in the air, barely a whisper.
- Writer
