to her, anxiety climbing his throat. “Zoey!”
But she was gone.
He quickly punched in her cell phone number and waited while it rang … and clicked over to voice mail.
“Zoey here. You know what to do,” her message chirped in the bright, carefree tone that characterized the woman he’d fallen in love with years ago. Spontaneous. Mischievous. Full of life.
“It’s me, Zee. I’m worried about you. Call me.” His voice quaked, but he didn’t care. Zoey had seen him worse off. Much worse.
“Look at me, Uncle Gage!” Pet called from the yard.
He raised his head to find his niece hanging upside down from the swing set. His five-year-old niece was a lot like Zoey. Wild. Full of energy. Fearless.
“I’m a monkey!” the dark-haired imp giggled as she swung from the top bar.
“Be careful, Squirt. Don’t fall.” One personal emergency at a time, please.
He might be a firefighter, a first responder, handling crises in the community for a living, but in his private life, Gage could juggle only so much. Taking custody of his niece while his sister dried out and put her life back together already consumed most of his energy. Now Zoey was in trouble.
He had no use for a trip to the E.R. tonight with Pet. Been there. Done that.
Dividing his attention between the phone and his niece, Gage redialed Zoey’s number.
Again the call kicked over to her voice mail. “Zoey here. You know what to do.”
But he didn’t know. As he had much of his life, Gage felt himself sinking into uncertainty, worried about the people he loved. What was he going to do with Pet? With his sister?
And how the hell was he supposed to help Zoey?
Chapter 2
Zoey gaped at the thug who’d crushed her cell phone under his boot heel when she’d threatened to call the police. The guy wasn’t scary in the traditional sense—in fact she’d call him more goofy-looking than intimidating. He had a zigzag buzz cut and a pierced eyebrow that added to his trying-too-hard-to-look-tough appearance. No, what bothered Zoey were his arms, specifically the tracks of needle marks up and down his skin. If he was high, he could be dangerously unpredictable.
With a jerk on the cord, he disabled the motel room’s landline, as well.
How could Derek have done business with these cretins? And how could she convince them that she had no more money than Derek did to pay off Derek’s debts?
“You don’t want to call the cops, ‘cause that would piss me off. And I’m not someone you want pissed at you.” He aimed a finger at her and narrowed his eyes to slits. “It’s real simple. Either tell us where Derek is or give us the twenty grand he owes us.”
Zoey choked. “Twenty grand? He told me it was just a couple thousand!”
The guy who’d stomped her cell phone jammed his face in hers. “Your boyfriend lied. And the price goes up every day he’s late payin’. Interest, you know.”
His breath smelled of cinnamon gum, and Zoey pulled a face. What should have been a refreshing scent turned her stomach coming from him. “Look, Derek and I split up. Your beef with him is not my problem. I don’t have any money. He stole it all from me, so—”
A stinging smack landed on her cheek, and she gasped in shock and pain.
Mr. Cinnamon-Breath shook out the fingers in his hand. A hissing-snake tattoo on his forearm seemed to writhe as his muscles flexed. “I told you not to piss me off.”
Zoey raised her chin defiantly. He was ticking her off, too. “I don’t have—”
He grabbed her wrist and jerked her close. “Derek told us you came from money. You can get that twenty thou and a whole lot more from your family.”
A chill slithered through her. Dread knotted her gut knowing this guy would likely extort any sum of cash he could from her through fear and intimidation. Her family’s money. She couldn’t let this guy’s menace hurt her family. Squaring her shoulders, she dug deep for the courage to stand up to this bully. “My family disowned me two years ago when I hooked up with Derek. They won’t give me a cent.” She waved a hand toward the dingy motel room bed. “Do you think I’d be living like this if I had a cash flow from my parents?”
“You got credit cards, don’t you?”
“I, uh—” Her gaze darted to her purse and back, her spirits rising. Her emergency credit card! After getting in a load of debt in high school, from which her parents had had to bail her out, Zoey had sworn off credit cards, cut them up. Except for one. The emergency Visa. Well, this was an emergency, right?
Except the thug’s gaze moved to her purse, too. Uh-oh.
“Hey, Viper, a cop just pulled in up at the front office,” his cohort said from the door. “Time to go.”
Viper—his moniker no doubt the reason for his tat, or vice versa—stiffened and snapped his gaze toward the door with a grumbled curse. Returning his narrowed glare to Zoey, Viper backed toward the door. “You seem like a smart girl. Use those smarts to come up with my money. Meantime, we’ll just take this.” He grabbed her wallet—with the emergency credit card and what little cash she had—and stormed out without closing the door.
Hiccuping a half sob, Zoey slid to the floor. She touched her throbbing cheek and shivered. Cheesy theatrics or not, Viper and his cronies scared her. She had no doubt they’d return, and they’d hurt her if she didn’t come up with the money they wanted.
She could, of course, still go to the cops. But how much evidence could she give them? What could the cops really do? This was Las Vegas, for crying out loud. Loan sharks had to be as common and pesky as flies in this town. The cops might swat at one, but another would buzz around a few minutes later, until the police accepted them as part of the landscape.
Dragging herself to her feet, she staggered to the door and slammed it shut. After throwing the feeble security lock and latching the chain, she stumbled to the bed and curled into a ball. She wanted to call Gage back, tell him what had happened, but her phone was in pieces thanks to Viper’s boot, the room phone disabled.
She tried to push aside the jitters Viper and his pals had stirred. She had to figure out what to do, how to get herself out of her circumstances. Without money, she couldn’t even buy a bus ticket home. She was stranded in Vegas. Her phone was ruined. She had no job, no boyfriend. And she was pregnant.
Her dire straits pressed down on her, nearly suffocating her. When tears pricked her sinuses, she closed her eyes as, like Dorothy in Oz, she dreamed of home. Of Lagniappe. Her family.
As much as she wanted to call her parents or her sisters for help, her pride wouldn’t let her. She’d been a disappointment to her overachieving family most of her life. The black-sheep sister. The daughter with the penchant for trouble. She couldn’t bear the thought of telling them how royally she’d screwed up again, especially because her father had predicted Derek would lead
