She still couldn’t figure out how Hunter had known where she was.
She must have been following me.
Did Hunter not trust her to work her half of the plan while she checked the hospitals?
Making idle chit-chat with one of the police officers between interviews, she heard Baby Mason had been reunited with his parents and Josh Jr. had been sent to the father’s parents until everything could be sorted out. She didn’t know what would happen to the mother. It seemed clear to Charlotte the woman had suffered some sort of breakdown, but she was sure the authorities wouldn’t let her walk after she stole a baby.
Charlotte was eager to get back to the Inn, where, exhausted, she slept until nine, when the sound of Angelina’s heels outside her door woke her up. She suspected that had been on purpose. She wanted to hear what happened.
Her time at the Loggerhead Inn had come to an end. Now standing in the lobby with Angelina, she checked the time on the sea turtle-shaped clock hanging on the wall behind Croix’s head. Eleven a.m. If she left now, she could be back in Pineapple Port by two. She opened the location app on her phone to see if Declan was at work and gasped.
“What is it?” asked Angelina.
“Hunter has been tracking my phone.”
“What?”
“She turned on the locating app and approved her connection on my phone.”
Angelina’s brow knit. “How did she do that? She stole your phone?”
“No. I gave it to her.” Charlotte thought back to handing Hunter her phone at the dock.
She must have done it then.
Smooth.
“We’d just met. It never even occurred to me she’d already be plotting ways to track me—”
Croix scoffed. When Charlotte turned to look at her, she looked away, shuffling papers.
Angelina’s gaze dropped to settle on the duffle bag laying at Charlotte’s feet. “So you’re checking out? You’re not going to stay and try and find her?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“No. If she wants to be found she’ll show up.” She glanced back at Croix. “Plus, you have people here much more savvy than me if you want to find her.”
The sound of the sarcasm dripping from her words made Croix look up with a smile.
“Agreed.”
Charlotte held up her phone. “Plus, she can find me anytime she likes.”
Angelina grinned. “You’re not going to turn off the tracking?”
“Nah. Maybe she’ll come to me.”
“It doesn’t work both ways? You can’t track her?”
“No. She’d have to approve my request to track her. But that’s a good idea.” Charlotte submitted a request and stared at her phone to see if anything happened.
Nothing.
She clicked on Declan’s phone and discovered he wasn’t at work. He was at her house.
“That’s weird,” she mumbled.
“What?” asked Angelina.
“Oh, nothing. My boyfriend is at my house. I thought he’d be at work by now.”
Angelina shrugged. “He probably misses you.”
Charlotte laughed. “Right. He’s sitting in my living room pining for me, smelling my clothes.”
Angelina tucked Harley under her arm and stood from her place behind the concierge desk. She thrust out her other hand and motioned for Charlotte to come in for a hug.
“Well, it’s been nice meeting you. If Siofra visits, you’ll be the first to know.”
Charlotte gave her a sideways hug and picked up her duffle bag. By the time she’d straightened, Croix had appeared in front of her, her hand thrust out to shake.
“See ya,” she said.
Charlotte shook her hand. “See ya.”
She moved toward the exit. Bracco spotted her coming and opened the door for her.
“It was nice to meet you, Bracco,” she said as she lugged her duffle through the door.
He touched the brim of his cap.
“Yep.”
She stopped and smiled.
He said the right word.
Unwilling to ruin the moment, she nodded and kept moving without pressing for more.
The drive to Pineapple Port proved more brutal than the trip to the east coast had been. Charlotte found herself stuck behind two local trucks going exactly the speed limit through the pasture lands of middle Florida, and later, one tractor going twenty miles less than the speed limit. Luckily, the green behemoth didn’t stay on the road for long, but it still slowed her time. It took her three hours and thirteen minutes instead of the two-fifty-five she’d managed in the other direction.
Excited to surprise Declan, she didn’t call to warn him she was on her way. She checked her phone as she neared Charity and found him still at her house.
Odd. She guessed he’d gone to get something for Abby and accidentally left his phone there. He was probably going crazy looking for it.
She pulled up to her house to find Declan’s car parked at the curb.
An enormous man was on her roof.
She squinted through her sunglasses.
Why is there a giant on my roof?
It had to be Blade, Declan’s employee. No one else was that big.
She suspected Declan had asked Blade to help him fix her leaky roof. Taking a few steps back to get a better view, she could see it looked as if half the roof had been torn away.
Wandering towards her door, her eyes still locked on Blade, she narrowly avoided tripping over a pile of roofing tiles.
“Hey, Blade,” she said.
“Hey, Miss Charlotte,” said the giant of a man, grinning down at her.
“Did Declan hire you to fix my roof?”
She heard his great baritone laugh. “Eventually.”
Eventually?
“What does that mean?”
