“I’m glad it’s not a dream though.” Jakob’s voice was firm and he reached out and grabbed my hand. “Even in all this craziness, I’m glad it’s not a dream, because if it was a dream, I wouldn’t have met you and I wouldn’t have you here with me.”

“I do believe you just said something romantic to me.” I curled my fingers into his. “Who would have thunk it?”

“I can be romantic at times.”

“Once in a blue moon, I’m guessing.”

“I was pretty romantic on the island, don’t you think?”

My mind drifted back to our days in the sun and sand. How far away that seemed now. It was almost like a distant memory in my mind.

“Are you listening, Bianca, or did I scare you?”

“Sorry, what? I didn’t hear you?” I looked at him and gave him a weak smile.

“I said, we need to get you that pregnancy test.” He looked at me, his eyes blazing. “And if you’re pregnant, we should get married.”

“What?” I froze in shock.

“I know, that came out wrong. Let’s get married anyway. I don’t want you to think it’s about the baby.”

“Oh.” My heart was thudding as I gazed at him. I was excited and shocked. I was about to ask him why when my phone beeped and I stared at the text message on the screen in shock.

It’s Steve. We need to talk. Your life is in danger. I told you before to be careful who you fall for. They are all deceiving you. Maybe you’ll trust me now. Whatever you do, don’t go to David’s apartment. Delete this message and wait for my next text. I’m going to help you.

“Who’s that?” Jakob looked over at me with a curious expression.

“It’s Steve.” I stared into Jakob’s eyes in shock. “He says he wants to talk to me. He says my life is in danger and that I should be careful who I fall for. What should I do?”

“Text him back.” Jakob’s eyes were hard. “Tell him you want to meet up with him.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

“He told me to wait for him to text me back.”

“Then wait. We don’t want to give him any reason to disappear again. He could finally provide us some of the answers we’ve been looking for. He can tell us if he’s been working for Larry and what Larry’s master plan was. We might have all the answers to all the questions sooner and easier than we thought.”

“Yeah, this might all be solved soon.” I looked out of the window, my brain not feeling the same hope that was in my voice. “That would be great.”

Chapter Fourteen

I walked up to my apartment, waited for thirty minutes on the couch, and then left again. I wasn’t sure what made me go to David’s apartment. Maybe it was because Steve had told me not to go. Maybe I was hoping to catch Rosie and David together. Maybe I just needed that confrontation without Jakob being there. I knew Jakob wouldn’t like my going to see David behind his back, but I had bigger concerns than that. I needed to find out where Rosie was and talk to her by myself. I owed that to our friendship. I wanted to confront her alone. I saw Joseph standing at the front of the building and stopped. I didn’t want him to alert David that I was coming up to see him.

“Hey, kid,” I called out to a small boy eating a large ice cream cone.

“Yeah?” He looked at me warily.

“I need you to go and spill that ice cream on that man.” I pointed to Joseph.

“What? For real?” The kid shook his head.

“I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

“Okay.” His eyes lit up as if it were Christmas.

“Here you go.” I handed him a twenty and sighed. I should have offered him five. Twenty seemed like an awful lot of money just to dump some ice cream. “Now go.” I watched as he ran up to Joseph and threw the cone at his face. Trust me to choose a hooligan. I saw Joseph chasing down the kid and I walked quickly to the building, avoiding looking in their direction as I hurried into the building. My heart was beating fast as I made my way into the elevator. I’d made it. I exited the elevator quickly and hurried to David’s apartment. I tried opening the door without knocking. I grinned as it opened easily. He needed to get his locks fixed. The bottom lock never locked the door unless it was slammed it hard. I crept inside the apartment and froze as I heard two voices coming from the study. I walked slowly and crept up to the door that was slightly ajar and peeked in. But no one was there.

“What are you going to do, Jakob?” David’s voice said clearly, and I froze.

“I’m still deciding,” Jakob responded gruffly.

I looked around the room in confusion. Where were the noises coming from? No one was in the room. Then I saw the small AM/FM transistor radio sitting on the floor next to the desk. I crouched down and picked it up—the sounds were coming from there.

“You’re a fool, you know that, right?” David’s voice was full of static as I held the radio to my ear. Where were they? I hurried out of the study and looked around the rest of the apartment quickly.

Beep beep. I grabbed my phone to see who had texted me.

Smart girl. It’s Steve again. I’m glad you went to David’s apartment. Go to the TV in his bedroom. Turn it to channel 1003 now. I told you to trust me.

How do you know where I am?

Don’t worry about that. Go to the TV in David’s room now.