Geek Chic (7 page)

“It’s hard to have faith when every instinct tells me I’ll never see her again.”

She shook him. “Don’t give up. Please?” She hated seeing the man look so dejected, broken.

Like a kicked puppy.

They waited for the next bus, but didn’t even bother to get on when the male driver opened the door.

“Sorry,” Dewi said to the driver as Beck turned and walked away without saying anything. “He forgot to get something.”

The driver shrugged, closed the door, and pulled away.

Beck was heading across the grassy swale toward the apartment complex parking lot where they’d left his car when Dewi caught up with him.

“Come on, Beck. Next one is in an hour. We’ll catch it.”

“No. It’s over.”

She caught up with him before he reached the driver’s door, getting between him and the car. “Listen to me,” she said. “I won’t let you give up.”

When he met her gaze, she realized there were tears in his eyes.

Something she’d never seen, had never expected to see from the fierce Alpha wolf.

It broke her heart.

“It wasn’t meant to be, okay?” he quietly said. He sounded…broken. “Just…drop it.”

“Jeez, we’ve been at this for less than a day, huh? Don’t give up before we’ve even had a chance to really look.”

He leaned against the door. “It feels like there’s a hole in my heart,” he quietly said. “In my soul. Like it’s empty, and I didn’t realize how empty it was until I met her. Now it hurts.”

“Then let’s not give up. This isn’t the end of the search, it’s only the beginning.”

He seemed to consider it. “I just can’t do any more today,” he quietly said. “I don’t have it in me to feel the disappointment again today. It’s like a knife slicing through my guts.”

She took the keys from his hand and gently pushed him toward the passenger side. “I’ll drive. Let’s go back to my place and see if Ken’s found out anything.”

* * * *

Unfortunately, Ken still hadn’t come up with any information about N. Drexler, the HART bus driver.

“What about hacking into their computer system?” Beck asked. “Didn’t you say you could do that?”

“Are you serious?”

“But you said you could do it.”

“No, I said I
shouldn’t
and didn’t
want
to do that.”

“But you
can
do it?”

Ken looked at Dewi. “Am I speaking English?”

“He’s upset,” she said, feeling sorry for Beck, and feeling more than a little guilty. “Remember what I was like? Times that by a thousand since he had to let her go.” Had Dewi realized what was going on, she would have told Beck to stay on the bus. She hadn’t needed his help to take down Palver.

When it came to mates, once again poor Beck got shafted.

And not in the good way.

“You’ve got to help me find her,” Beck implored. “Please.”

“I’m going to do everything within my power to help you,” Ken said, “but I’m not some uber-hacker. It’s not like in the movies where you type a few keystrokes and stuff blows up.”

“Can we find someone like that?” Beck asked, sounding hopeful. “Who can do that? Hire them. I’ll pay them anything—”

“Dewi—”

“I know,” she said, turning Beck and herding him toward the door. “Come on. Let’s leave him alone.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Let us know if you get a lead.”

 “You don’t need to sheepdog me,” Beck complained as she steered him out the back sliders and onto the screened lanai that covered the pool and hot tub.

“Yes, I do. He can’t do anything with us breathing down his neck. He’ll come up with an answer, one way or another. Just give him time.”

“I don’t
have
time.” He collapsed into a chair at the table.

“Yes, you do. It doesn’t feel like it, but you do. This is only a temporary delay. He’ll locate her, and then we’ll go find her, and then you can claim her.”

He stretched out and threw his head back. “She’s probably taken,” he mumbled.

“You don’t know that.”

“What am I going to do if she’s taken?”

While Dewi felt sorry for him, it was hard to see her Alpha partner whining like a freaked out Chihuahua. “Dude, sac up and stop thinking about what-ifs.”

“That’s easy for you to say!”

“No, it’s not. Now, I love you because you’re family, but I’ve had about enough of this mopey bullshit. We have a job to do, and we need to do it. We have shit to take care of, pack business that’s still got to be handled. Let Ken do his job and you keep doing your job. If nothing else, it’ll take your mind off this for a little while.”

* * * *

When Badger called out a five-minute warning until dinner was ready, Dewi and Beck went to the office first to check on Ken.

“No, I haven’t tracked her down yet,” Ken said, “but I have an idea.”

“What?” Beck asked.

“HART has several regional transit centers.” He pulled up a PDF map on his laptop and turned it so they could see the screen. “See? We start out by spending a day, or more, at each one.”

“How is that going to help us find her?” Beck asked. “What if she drives a route that doesn’t go there?”

“All the routes go to a transit center. Either a local one, or one of the park and ride express routes. Some go through transfer centers, too.”

“What if she changes routes? What if she doesn’t drive the same one all the time?”

“Either we’ll find her, or you’ll sniff her out and it’ll give you a lead. There are a finite number of busses and routes. Yes, it might take us a while, but until I can find a way to hack into the HART computer system without the NSA finding out, this is going to be your best bet. Quite honestly, this
is
your best bet, even if I can eventually hack into the system without getting caught.”

“What about calling them? Can’t you call and ask about her?”

“I tried that first thing this morning. They don’t give out information on drivers. Privacy issues. You’ll probably find her faster this way. The bus you were on, that route goes from the University Transit Center, all the way downtown to the Marion Transit Center. You start with one of those two, sit there all day, and wait. Lots of people, it’ll be easy to blend in.”

“Transit centers?”

Ken turned his laptop to face him again. “Yeah. I’ve used them before plenty of times. The busses, I mean. Remember, I didn’t have a car. How do you think I got around when I needed to go places that weren’t close to my apartment? I didn’t ride my bike all the way across the county.” He stood and rounded the desk as if to head to the dining room, but Beck didn’t move.

“So there’s a good chance I’ll find her this way?” Beck asked.

“Better than good. I suspect you will find her this way if you keep at it every day and are methodical about it.”

Beck grinned and slowly stalked toward Ken.

Ken backed away, angling toward Dewi. “Dude, what are you doing?”

“Come here,” Beck said.

Before Ken could dart out of the way, Beck grabbed him in a bear hug.

“Oh, look, Dewi,” Ken said. “He’s hugging me.
Why
is he hugging me?”

“Just let it happen, sweetie,” she said. “Wait him out. He’ll be done in a minute.”

“I
love
you, man!” Beck said as he lifted Ken off his feet and spun him around. “Absolutely
love
you!”

“Beck,” Dewi drawled. “Ease up. You’re wrinkling my mate.”

“Yeah,” Ken said, gasping. “You’re wrinkling me.”

He finally set Ken down on his feet again. Then he grabbed Ken’s head in both hands and kissed his forehead before finally releasing him. “Sorry, but dude, I
love
you!”

“Message received.” Ken wiped his forehead with his hand. “For future reference, a simple handshake will suffice.”

* * * *

They started out the next morning before dawn, heading to the University Transit Center. Ken sat in the backseat of the truck, with his laptop and a hot cup of coffee, while Dewi and Beck sat in the front and kept their eyes on the busses.

Beck made several passes through the facility when he spotted a driver who might fit the bill, but each time it turned out to be a false alarm. By six o’clock that morning, they still hadn’t located her. Beck’s mood steadily deteriorated with every passing minute.

“Why did I think this would even be possible?” he grumbled from the passenger seat.

“Stop it,” Ken said. “The system has over two hundred busses, trolleys, vans, and other vehicles. It’s going to take a while and we’ve been at it less than a few hours. We’ll find her.”

“Can’t we pay a precocious high-schooler to hack their system or something?”

“Stop,” Dewi said.

“There’s about fifty routes, total,” Ken said, “when you account for all the express routes, trolleys, all of those. I suspect if she’s driving a bus, chances are she won’t be driving one of the vans or trolleys.”

“Why?” Beck asked.

“They probably require something different in terms of training, or they might even be better routes. I’m spitballing, here. Work with me. It’s a theory. I’ll admit I could be wrong, but it’s a logical starting point.”

Beck grunted but didn’t interrupt him again.

“We spend several days here at this transit center before we move to the next one,” Ken said. “That will cover the potential for her having a couple of days off in a row. If we don’t find any hint of her after several days, we move on to the next one. And so on. Eventually, we will find her. We might even have to cover the same transit center more than once, but the law of averages is in our favor. Your job is to stay patient and listen to us and not give up hope.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Beck darkly muttered.

Chapter Seven

It had been five days since Mystery Hunk kissed Nami and then run off her bus and out of her life. Meanwhile, her world had seemingly tipped on its axis even though nothing on the surface appeared to be different.

Why do I feel so empty now?

It didn’t make any sense. None whatsoever.

I really need a boyfriend, I guess.

If some random crazy white man kissing her and then running off could leave her feeling that way, it had to mean it was a sign from the Universe that she needed to do something different with her life.

Right?

Right.

It didn’t help that she’d awakened that morning to a growing sense of unease that seemingly had no source.

Well, no source other than Mystery Hunk’s kiss five days prior.

Which made no sense, because Danice had never had an issue like that on her route before. At least, not with anyone matching that guy’s description. When Nami had mentioned it to Danice again in text yesterday, couched in terms of checking on her, Danice had reported no issues. Unless Danice was lying to her, which she doubted, in this case. Drivers tended to look out for each other in terms of safety issues.

So, apparently, it was a random event. He wasn’t even a regular rider on the route. Nami was used to dealing with drunks and jerks and assholes of every kind and gender. She’d even rebuffed sexual advances and kicked people off her bus for misconduct.

But she’d never had one kiss her.

And boy, howdy, had he kissed her. That had been the best kiss of her whole life.

She didn’t even know his name. She thought the woman with him had called him Beck, or something like that, but she wasn’t sure.

Today, Nami was slated to pick up her bus and start her shift at the Citrus Park Walmart. It meant she didn’t need to be there at the ass-crack of dawn to get her bus from the main depot. It also meant a shorter drive to work, but a longer drive later, and against rush hour traffic, to pick up Da’von from Lu’ana’s house.

Worth every mile and minute of it.

She’d spent the extra time that morning doing laundry and planning their dinner menu for the next week. After she picked up Da’von that evening, they’d stop by the grocery store on the way home. She didn’t like to eat every night at Lu’ana’s. She knew the couple needed private time, and if she ate there too often, she felt like a mooch.

Although she invited them over for dinner or weekend meals every chance she got.

Still, shopping with Da’von was a nice routine, made nicer by being able to spend a little more money on better, healthier food ever since Malyah graduated and got her job. And it gave them time together.

Life is looking up.

She had a little money stashed away in savings. In a few months, she might even be able to replace her aging Toyota with another used car.

I’m still young. Not even forty yet. Plenty of time for me to settle down.

She didn’t know if she wanted children, though. Probably not at her age, and not after basically raising three kids already. It wasn’t high on her priority list. Oh, she had wanted kids, years ago when her energy and her hopes ran high.