He finally tore his gaze away from his injury. “Rick,” he said, taking the choice away from her right as he gave her his permission. “Just Rick.”
13
“That’s a bad habit,” Boone noted. It was the first thing he’d said since he parked the Jag about a mile into the strait that led to Hamlet.
Tommy glanced down at the cigarette perched between his ring and middle fingers. So it was. A habit, at least. He’d kick it if he cared enough to.
He took a deep drag on the filter, his cheeks hollowed, his lips thinned. His cobalt eyes flashed murderously. The nicotine did nothing to calm his anger—or his nerves.
Sometimes he thought he picked up the act of smoking this last year because of Grace. Not because she drove him to it, but because he wanted her to say something about it. To tell him it repulsed her. To ask him to stop. To show him that she cared.
The embers on the tip burned bright, a fiery red glow. He exhaled the smoke roughly through his nose.
Yanking the half-spent cigarette from his mouth, he glared at it as if it had insulted him, huffed in frustration, and tossed it more than four feet away from him with a careless motion.
Boone calmly unfolded his large body from his position leaning up against the driver’s side door. Stalking over to the smoldering cigarette, he placed the heel of his dress shoe over it, savagely extinguishing its light before silently returning to his post by the car.
His bodyguard was so quiet, Tommy wanted to scream.
Where was she?
Two weeks. For two weeks, he left her alone in there. Not even a single flicker from her phone. Pope reported that, in the time they spent scoping out the entrance, there had been a grand total of ten cars that left through the coned-off exit. Those same
ten cars returned within hours.
No one else entered.
Grace hadn’t left.
A couple of days ago, he ordered Pope and O’Dell to risk visiting the small town. It was a ballsy move. If Grace got wind of it and no one was watching the exit, she might manage to slip out of the mouse hole. She’d proven time and time again that she’d bolt whenever he got too close.
He thought it was cute in the beginning. Now he grew tired of it. If she kept this up any longer, he might start to doubt that she was as devoted to their future as he was.
At least one good thing came out of their trip on the inside. Their intel gave his guys two strong leads. First? There was an inn not too far into Hamlet. Tommy scoffed. The Hamlet Inn, because the yokels who lived in this hole were oh so creative when it came to names. The Hamlet Inn, the Hamlet School, the Hamlet fucking Pizzeria. He couldn’t wait to get Grace away from there.
The Hamlet Inn was the luxury hotel for the handful of morons who might actually want to visit the place. If Grace stumbled on the blocked exit accidentally, taking it only because she needed somewhere to run to, somewhere to hide, then the Hamlet Inn made sense.
Except Pope went in and sweet talked the woman who ran the counter. While she offered him his pick of any of their rooms, he got her to admit that he would be the only guest. No one else was checked in at the Hamlet Inn.
But that’s when they got their second lead. Because, as it turned out, the Hamlet Inn wasn’t the only game in town. For anyone who was after a homier place to stay, there was a quaint bed and breakfast named after a character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Ophelia. A little heavy-handed, Tommy felt. At least it was better than the Hamlet Inn.
Pope and O’Dell were working on a plan to surveil Ophelia without drawing too much attention from the rest of the locals. As lead on the ground operation, Pope asked for a little more time.
As frustrated and angry as he was, Tommy was also feeling generous. His plans for their upcoming wedding were going well enough. There was still some time left. He could afford to wait a little longer before he finally snapped.
“I’ll give her two more weeks,” he announced to Boone, reaching inside of his suit jacket for another cigarette. He’d gone from an occasional smoke here or there to a pack a day habit in the last few weeks. Having her so close—having her right there—was grating on his nerves more than he wanted to acknowledge. Add that to his father’s daily requests for wedding prep updates and Tommy was clinging to the edge of his patience. The cigarettes helped. Barely.
Boone loomed behind him, his ever-present shadow. “Say the word, sir. Give me the mission. I’ll get your bride for you.”
Tommy appreciated Boone’s desire to prove himself. His bodyguard had done that countless times. But with this? He needed a softer touch. Boone was big, but he had a special set of skills. He was more of a stealthy sniper, sneaking in under the cover of darkness. If he was going to finesse Grace out of this trap, he needed someone who knew how to work with people—and how to work them.
“Give Pope the two weeks. If he hasn’t succeeded by then, you take lead on this part of the operation.”
“I won’t let you down,” Boone vowed.
“You never do.”
Rick set a timetable for their lessons. He would come by Tuesday mornings and Saturday afternoons, an hour at a time. Keeping that in mind, Grace decided to host her classes on Fridays.