Counterfeit Love

I was almost impressed, at this point, that I had yet to come across a fake bill in the several dozen banks I had been to.

"You'd think some people in his hometown would remember him," Vance added, kicking his boots up on the coffee table next to my couch bed.

"They all remembered Finch and Ryan," Ferryn said.

Of course they would remember him. He was not someone easy to forget.

"We're gonna find him," Malcolm said, and I knew it was directed at me. When it came to reassurance, Ferryn wasn't the best. And Vance usually spent some of his time reassuring her. Which was why Malc had stepped up.

I didn't need reassurances.

I needed answers.

I needed...

"Got you," I hissed, my belly dropping, my heart soaring up into my throat.

"You found a fake? "Ferryn asked, jumping up, making her way over toward me. "How do you know?"

"The ultraviolet glow. Five dollar notes glow blue. Tens glow orange. This five dollar is glowing orange," I told her, moving the magnifier over the bill slowly, looking for anything that might be a clue.

"Couldn't it just be a rookie mistake by another counterfeiter?"

"No."

"We're going to need more proof than that, Chris," she reminded me, trying to keep me grounded.

"Every counterfeiter knows about the ultraviolet glow. You can find it out on a Google search. But aside from that, this is not rookie work. See how the ink is raised? That is really hard to do. Like only a handful of counterfeiters can make that happen. Finch is one of those people. He said it is all in the paper. The watermark is right. The serial numbers are good. The red and blue threads are on-point. Literally the only thing wrong is the ultraviolet glow. It was done deliberately."

"Is there anything else?"

"I'm looking." If he put the one mistake in, he had to have tried to put something else in. Something that might lead us to an actual location. "There," I nearly shrieked, pulse tripping into overdrive.

"What is it?"

"In the eagle feathers. There are really small numbers."

"A phone number?" Vance asked.

"No. Five numbers. A zip code," I decided, reaching for my phone, plugging it in. "Ville Platte."

"No wonder we haven't gotten anywhere knocking around New Orleans," Vance said, meaning around the area Finch and Ewan had grown up, on the outskirts, away from the hubbub, but close enough to get into trouble when they wanted to.

"Yeah, it's almost three hours from there," Malcolm agreed, looking at his phone. "Don't worry," he added. "I'm already looking for places we can crash while we look around. "They got a chain hotel. I'll book a couple rooms."

"I know. I know. We need to pack because you want to get on the road ten minutes ago," Ferryn teased as I shuffled the money together, keeping out the fake bill, catching myself rubbing my finger over it, imagining his hands there, making this message just for me. Because he knew I would be looking. Because he knew I would come get him if he couldn't get himself free. Because it was the closest I had felt to him in too long.

"Can you text my mom?" I asked of Malcolm since he lived out of his suitcase when he traveled, while I had everything out that needed to be put away.

It was only half an hour later when we left the trailer as we had found it, shuffled into Vance's borrowed SUV and my rental, and were on our way.

I had been certain from the start that we would find him.

But this was the first time that I felt close.

"What?" Malcolm asked from the driver's seat because he wouldn't let me drive since he was convinced I wasn't eating or sleeping enough to do so effectively.

"What what?"

"You're smiling."

Was I?

"I'm not smiling. I'm smirking," I corrected, feeling the distinction was important in a tense time.

"What are you smirking about?"

"I was thinking I suddenly understand why men like to be the white knight, charging in to save the day. This feels pretty good."

"I'll take your word for it. I'm not much of the white knight sort," he said, shrugging.

Oh, how untrue those words would prove in time.

But that was a different story for another day.

Right now, this was about Finch and me.

And I was on my way to save my man.

Whether he liked being saved or not.Chapter FourteenFinchReally, it wasn't any worse than prison.

The hours were longer, most especially so because I was working hard to slip some clues into the bills without it being completely obvious to the plain eye.

I didn't need to appeal to a plain eye.

I needed to get Chris's attention.

And everything I knew about her said that she would look over every square inch. With the world's best magnifying glass. If for no other reason than that she refused to settle until she found the answers to problems. That said, I genuinely hoped it was more than that for her, that she was as interested in really giving this a go as I was, that this little kidnapping and forced work thing was a minor inconvenience on that path.