Page 39 of Russian Roulette
Nothing.
“Jade! Everything alright?” I knock loudly on the door. She might be sick and passed out on the floor. The thought alarms me, and I knock louder. “Jade! Open up!” I turn the doorknob, suspecting she’s locked it from the inside. The door doesn’t budge.
Dashing back into the hallway, I call out for the guys. “Kit! Come quick! I need you to open the bathroom door.” Kit and Vulcan jump up from the kitchen table and dash toward me. “I yelled for her and she’s not answering,” I tell them. “She might be unconscious on the floor.”
“Jade! Open the damn door!” Kit yells while he pounds hard on the bathroom door. When she doesn’t answer, he takes two steps back and then body slams the door, splintering the doorframe. The door flies open, and we all rush inside the bathroom.
“Fuck!” I yell. “Where did she go?”
The bathroom is empty except for two blinky-eyed ostriches who have stuck their long necks through the open window. They’re curiously trying to peck at the specks on the marble bathroom floor.
Kit runs to the window and peeks out. “Dammit! She figured out I lied to her about the tigers protecting the house. She must’ve seen the ostriches and realized the tigers weren’t roaming around loose outside. I should’ve kept the ostriches in their pen. It’s a habit to let them out every evening, and I forgot.”
“Is that what you told her?” Vulcan asks, grabbing his head in frustration. “That your tigers are guarding the house? After the huge stink you made this morning over needing to secure Puffin for her safety and all that shit? You’re a dumbass. Of course, she figured it out. Fucking hell, Kit! She’s smarter than that.”
“The story worked for the whole day,” Kit argues. “She didn’t question it after running into Puffin this morning.”
“That’s because she was exhausted and needed to rest,” Vulcan replies. “All she was doing today was recharging her batteries. What if we’ve lost her?” He slams his hand against the wall angrily. “If Giovanni gets his hands on her, I swear to God I’ll murder that motherfucker. I’m not kidding.”
“How far could she get on foot?” I ask. “Is she in any danger on your ranch from the animals?”
He shakes his head. “No, not unless she crawls inside a locked enclosure with them, which I’m positive she won’t do. There are signs up everywhere warning people not to enter. Nobody could ever accidentally step inside the tiger’s area without being warned many times.”
“Oh, shit!” I say, smacking my forehead with my palm. “We’re fucking idiots.”
“What is it?” Vulcan asks.
“She’s not on foot. Come on, we need to hurry if we have any chance in hell of catching her.” I rush back into the kitchen, where Leroy is nonchalantly working his way through a second pizza. “Where are the keys to the limo?” I shout at him.
“In the limo,” he mumbles with a mouth full of pizza. “Where else would they be? Who would steal a car in Kit’s driveway?”
“Jade! That’s who!” I yell. “Fuck!”
Kit is already running toward the front door, followed closely by Vulcan. He throws it open and steps out onto the wide front porch of the ranch house. The spot in the driveway where the limo was previously parked is now empty.
Vulcan bursts out laughing in disbelief. “I can’t believe she stole your limo.” He slaps his leg. “I fucking love this girl! She has balls of steel hanging low to the ground. To the ground, I’m telling you. Let’s go chase her.”
Leroy slowly follows us out of the house with a slice of pizza still in one hand. “No worries, guys. Don’t panic.”
“What the hell are you saying?” I whirl around to ask him. “Don’t you understand Jade stole my limo? It was there and now it’s gone! How can you eat at a time like this?”
“Easy,” he says, taking another bite of pizza and swallowing before answering. “The limo is insured to the max and we need a new one, anyway. I’ve had my eye on a white limousine with a red interior at one of the car dealerships. Stop fretting over your limo, Seven. We’ll just replace it. No worries.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the limo!” I shout back at him. “I’m worried for Jade. She’s in danger, and we need to find her before she disappears.”
“Damn, here I was, hoping we’d get a new limo,” Leroy says in a disappointed voice. “I can find her for you if she means that much to you.”
“How?”
He reaches into his pocket to take out his phone. “I have a GPS app on my phone to track the limo. Do you remember that time at Coachella when we lost the limo in the parking lot and wandered around for hours, drunk off our asses, hunting for it?”
I nod, hoping he’ll get to the point quickly. “Only vaguely. I was wasted, so I don’t remember much.”
“Well, after that needless tragedy, I put a tracker device in the glovebox.” He pulls up the app on his phone with his thumb and leans over to show it to me. “We can track her everywhere she goes. She’s already outside the front gate and is driving back toward Vegas.” His thumb follows the rapidly moving red dot on the map. “Dang! That girl sure has a heavy foot on her. She’s moving fast. We’d better get the move on if we want to catch her.”
I grab Leroy in a big bear hug and squeeze him tight. “I love you, man! You just saved our asses.”
“And that’s why you pay me the big bucks,” he says, chuckling. “To save your stupid asses on a daily basis. Twenty-four hours a day, I’m trying to keep you fellas out of trouble.”