Learning To Fly (Fated Love Book 1) (16 page)

Sitting back on my heels I waited to see if there was more. When nothing more came up—thank God—I flushed and washed my mouth out. Now that I wasn’t so focused on my need to throw up and avoiding the exorcist style vomiting all over the bathroom, I looked around and really noticed the bathroom. This wasn’t the bathroom on the bus. I hadn’t hit my elbow fifty thousand times. Had we gotten off, and
 
had I been too out of it to remember? No, that couldn’t be. I was a light sleeper, so even if Morgan had tried to move me, I would have woken. Hearing the door open behind me, I turned and saw Morgan coming into the bedroom.
 

“Babe? Where the hell are we?” He frowned and moved toward me.
 

“You don’t remember?”
 

I shook my head. “No.” I looked up and met his eyes.
 

“Baby, you’ve been asleep for the whole drive. We are in Nevada.” I frowned and pulled back a little.
 

“How did you get me off the bus without waking me?”
 

“I tried to wake you, but in the end, I couldn’t get you to wake up without getting called an asshole, so I carried you inside.” He chuckled and ran his fingers through my hair as he kissed my lips softly. “Come on, darlin’. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
 

I nodded and checked how bad I looked in the mirror, which earned me a slap to the ass. I squealed and looked at Morgan with narrowed eyes. “You’re gorgeous. Now move it.” I shoved him as hard as I could, but he didn’t even budge. He chuckled again, and I huffed. As I pushed past him, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and we left our room.

When I walked out, I looked around and saw all familiar faces, except for one. I looked up at Morgan. “Baby? Where’s Lucas?”
 

“Lucas wanted to take a little time out. Daniel is taking over for him. Maddison, I would like to introduce you to Ghost.”
 

“Ghost? Parents lose a bet or something?” I heard Morgan groan, and everyone but Ghost had to turn away to keep from laughing.
 

“There’s the Australian smartass I’ve heard so much about.”
 

I rolled my eyes as I moved away from Morgan and returned to the bedroom. I heard him telling Ghost I wasn’t normally like this as I slammed the door behind me. I laid down on the bed and counted to five. When I got to five, the door opened, and Morgan walked in. Closing the door behind him, he folded his arms over his chest and raised a brow.
 

“What?”
 

“Do you wanna tell me where that came from, Maddison?”
 

“Do you really want me to answer that given my current mood, Morgan?”
 

“Yes, I wanna know where the hell that rudeness came from.”
 

“Same place as Ghost, one would assume.” Morgan raised a brow at me.
 

“What is your problem? You don’t even know him.”
 

“I’ll let you think that, babe.” His brows creased in a frown, and he just stood there and looked at me. I closed my eyes and didn’t say a word. If he wanted to give me the silent treatment until I told him what that was about, then two could play at that game, but I usually won in the end.

I don’t know how long it was before I felt the bed dip and felt his hands on my waist. “Darlin’, I have no idea what that was about, but I am sure you have your reasons. Ghost’s father is an old army mate of my dad's, who has the same code name, as it so happens. Lucas needed to take a break before he thinks someone else got hurt because of him. Lucas is blaming himself for Michael.”
 

I raised a brow and opened my eyes. “It’s not his fault. Uncle Michael should have tried to warn us sooner or something. He just let it all carry out, though.”
 

“We know that, darlin’, but Lucas has never been through this before. We always got in before anything happened, so he made the call, and now we have Ghost. If he is anythin’ like his father, then we will get the son of a bitch.”
 

I just nodded and closed my eyes again. “He’s exactly like his father. You never knew when he would pop up. He would just appear. It used to scare the living daylights out of the teachers at school.” I opened my eyes and looked over at Morgan. “Ghost, or as he is more commonly known as, Tim, was my best friend in high school. One day, out of the blue, his dad moved them back over here. We lost contact after that. I almost didn’t recognise him at first, but when you said Ghost and I heard that subtle touch of Australian in his accent, I knew it was him. He must have been back recently to get it back again.” I turned my head and looked up at the ceiling. “He does his job, and he leaves. He doesn’t spend time in here unless he has to.”
 

“If that’s what you want, darlin’.”
 

I nodded, rolled over onto my side, and curled up. I remembered what I was like when he’d left. I knew the feeling of loss, and that one would always stick with me. I tried to look him up but could never find anything on him. I guess that’s how it had to be with his job. He couldn’t be a ghost if the world could find him. He’d always been destined to go into business with his dad.
 

Morgan stayed with me for a little while before moving back out of the room. I wasn’t sure how well Tim would actually pay attention to me not wanting him here, but at least, I had to try to keep that door closed.

Sitting up in bed when Morgan left and taking my iPad from next to me, I opened my Kindle app to where I last left off in ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and settled back. If Morgan was going to do his show tonight, then I was going to request that Daniel and Nate stay here with me. It was time I started being safe and not put myself in the line of fire. Hearing a knock at the bedroom door, I looked up. “Come in.” I couldn’t help but smile when Daniel stuck his head in.
 

“
ʻ
Ello, Poppet.” I snorted and shook my head.
 

“Been watching Pirates of the Caribbean again, Daniel?”
 

He looked shocked for a minute before he cracked up laughing and came into the room. “If you know it by that line, then you know it too well, Maddie Girl.” He flopped down on the bed and looked over at me. “Whatcha doing?”
 

“It’s called reading, Daniel. Maybe one day, we will teach you how to do it.” I squirmed when he poked my side and accidentally on purpose kicked him.  

“Watch the goods.”
 

I rolled my eyes at him. “Daniel, are you bored?”
 

“Yeah, how’d you guess?”
 

“You only annoy me when you’re bored.”
 

“Not true! I annoy you all the time!” He huffed, and I had to laugh.
 

“How can I help with your boredom, Daniel?”
 

“Want to play strip poker?”
 

“And it will be the last thing you ever do, Daniel. Morgan would kill you. Next suggestion?”
 

“Umm...”
 

“You had your heart set on that, didn’t you?”
 

Daniel nodded at me with a grin. “Sorry, bud. You are on your own with that one. Maybe we can talk Morgan into sending you to Vegas for a weekend when all this is done. I’m sure you can find plenty of girls to play strip poker with.”
 

He just snorted and got off the bed. “Fine. I will go and amuse myself.” He let out a deep sigh, and I laughed.
 

“If that’s what the kids are calling it now, then by all means, have at it. I don’t need to know.” He made a face at me, and I laughed as he left the room. He was way too easy.

Living in seclusion for most of my adult life was a good thing—most of the time. Had I known it was Maddison in trouble, I may have approached things differently. The rock I had been living under meant I had no idea she was even out here, let alone engaged and expecting a baby with my new client. This was going to be fun. Not. I was a professional though, so I was going to do the job I was hired to do.
 

After Maddison went back into the bedroom and slammed the door closed, Morgan followed her like a lost puppy dog and left me standing out with the guys. They were all looking at me like they wanted to kill me for upsetting her. She had always been a princess, but she’d never acted like one. Everyone who met her decided that about her. I knew it was something she hated, though. She was stubborn and independent, and no one could tell her what to do. How she ended up like this… Well, I am guessing her hand was forced because of the baby.
 

“What the hell was that about?”

I just shrugged at Daniel. “Want to tell me why I’m here so I can do my job?”
 

Daniel raised his brow at me and nodded. “Come on. We’ll go show you what we’ve got.”
 

Nodding, I followed them out of the room and down the hall to another suite. Daniel swiped his access card, and I raised a brow. “Do you all have the same card?”
 

He nodded. “Mostly. The only one who has Morgan’s room though is him.”
 

“First step, change that. No access card or code should be the same. If, for whatever reason, one goes missing or gets stolen, then stop that person’s access rather than everyone’s.” He nodded again and told Nate to get onto that. When we entered the room, Daniel and I sat down in front of their computer system. Leaning over, I checked what program they were using and typed in an override password. “Second step, get better software. You may not know who you are dealing with, but the right person could have an override password. With that, you’d no longer have any secrets.” Daniel nodded, and I sat back in my chair. How Maddison was still alive with this lot, I’ll never fucking know.

I listened to Daniel as he ran through everything I needed to know. Shifts were never the same people, and changeovers never happened at the same times and never in a routine. Well, at least they had something right. Then we got to Josh. I remembered him from school. He was always hanging around Maddison like a bad smell. He’d been waiting for a chance to get in her head, and I hated that me leaving did that to her. Once I had all the information they had, I gave Daniel some new information.
 

“Those phone numbers he’s using are all sequenced. He has bought a block of numbers and is burning through them. What was the last number you tracked?” He brought up the list of numbers they had for him, and it confirmed what I’d just said. “See here and here?” I pointed to two of the numbers. “That’s your first number, and that’s your last number. So if you run a trace on all of the numbers in that block, you’ll get him with the next call or message he makes.”
 

“Don’t you have to keep him on the phone for a certain period of time?”
 

I shook my head no. “Once upon a time, yes, but not now. Not with the program I am gonna give you, anyway. I developed this exclusively for the CIA, FBI, Army, Air Force, and Police because of that exact reason, and they all swear by it.”
 

“Why haven’t they used it for us before now, then?”
 

“Chances are you’ve been speaking to well-placed pawns. I’ll hook you up with my contacts.” Daniel nodded and slumped down in his chair.
 

“I feel like we’ve been doing more harm than good.”
 

“Dude, don’t stress on it. She is still alive so that means you have been doing everything right.” He nodded.  I knew he wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t have time to coddle him. “All right, I’m gonna go find this fucker. I’ll be in touch.” Before Daniel could say anything, I was gone.

I returned to my hotel with the USB filled with information from Daniel and uploaded it onto my computer. Starting with the phone numbers, I got to work and ran a trace on all of them but came up empty. I wasn’t worried, though. He would use one eventually, and it’ll track him. Using my FBI login, I opened up a search and found everything they had on Josh. I ran a search on Michael Lee, as well. If he was dead, then Josh could be using his cards or phones instead. When they came up clean, I froze all of his accounts and put a block on his phone so that it couldn’t be used. I was forcing his hand.

Reading the police report on the explosion that killed Michael, I got the location of the warehouse where they’d been. I checked neighbouring warehouses and buildings for security systems. Some of these I could hack easily enough, but one in particular, I had never come across before, so this would be interesting. The back entrance to the alley was where he’d exited from, so I pulled up the cameras along that alley for as long as I could. He got a few blocks away before he finally emerged out onto a street, and I was quickly able to get him on a traffic camera. Taking a screenshot of his car, I zoomed in on the license plate and got the number. Using the police database, I put out an APB on the car and the driver. Once I got him, though, those along with everything else I was doing would disappear along with him.

Finally, after a few hours, I tracked Josh to a hotel in the opposite direction of where we were now. That was good. He was putting distance between himself and Maddison. I came to a bump in the road when I encountered the security system near the warehouse. It didn’t slow me down much, though because I began to write the code that would get in, or attempt to depending on the quality, and have a look around—an untraceable code that destroyed itself if it was detected or once I was done. Once, I had come close to being caught but got out of it with the help of the police. Since then, I had re-written it. I got in with almost no hassle and was back on my way. With this little number, I was able to find out that Josh was there, and what room number he was in. I had him. Dialling Morgan’s number, I stood up and poured myself a drink from the minibar while I waited for him to answer.