Page 58 of The Hero
“Yeah. Love actually seems like such a tame word for how I feel about her. She’s strong. And brave. And resilient. She did as I asked and didn’t complain even once, even though she was under tremendous stress and had every right to. When that woman in Thailand suggested we get married, I let Marlowe believe she was talking me into it, but honestly? I didn’t even blink.”
“It’s a bloody good thing that you are,” Cal said. “It would’ve been nearly impossible to convince my people to get her out, considering she was a wanted woman, without her being connected to you legally.”
“Thank you for that again,” Bob said with feeling.
“You’re welcome. And if you thank me again, I’m gonna get pissed.”
Bob grinned at his friend.
Cal rolled his eyes. “Shite. Now you’re going to thank me every bloody day just to irritate me, aren’t you?”
“Probably.” Bob turned his gaze back to JJ. “Talk to me now about Willis. And Ian West. And her brother.”
“What about them?”
“Don’t do that. I know as soon as you heard their names from Marlowe, you were all over it. You’ve had a day and a half to look into them. Tell me what you found out.”
JJ sighed. “Fine. I tracked down Willis. He was relieved to know you two were safe. When he didn’t hear from you about the plans for getting on a plane, he started to get concerned.”
“Yeah, I screwed up and didn’t give Marlowe any of his info. I didn’t think she’d need it.”
“But you made her memorize the number to Jack’s Lumber,” JJ said.
“If anything happened, I knew you guys would take care of her. And you did.”
“Of course we did, you arsehole,” Cal said.
The men all chuckled.
“Right. And her brother?”
“He’s aware that she was flown here. I’m guessing he’s going to be making a trip to Maine sooner rather than later,” JJ said.
Bob wasn’t surprised. He was glad, actually. If it hadn’t been for Tony getting a hold of Willis, he never would’ve met Marlowe, and she’d still be rotting away in that prison in Bangkok. “And Ian West?”
“That situation is a little trickier,” JJ hedged.
Bob braced as his friend continued.
“He arrived back to his home in Boston nearly six weeks ago.”
“Really?” Bob asked in surprise. He’d figured the man would probably want to come back to the US to off-load the coins, but if he’d gotten back weeks ago, that meant he hadn’t even completed his monthlong obligation on the dig. Instead, he’d left shortly after Marlowe had been arrested.
“Yup. Apparently, he had a family emergency and had to leave Thailand.”
“Yeah, right. Family emergency, my ass. He wanted to get back here to sell the damn coins he stole from that dig,” Bob seethed.
“I’ve got Tex looking into figuring out how he’s planning to off-load them. It’s not like he can take out an ad on social media or in the newspapers,” JJ said.
“And we’re not messing around this time. We dragged our feet with June’s situation. Got complacent. That’s not happening again,” Cal said firmly.
Bob nodded. They really had screwed the pooch with the situation with June’s stepmother and sister. They’d had a good idea the sister’s “stalker” was a ruse, that she and her mom would do anything to get Cal’s attention—and his money. But they hadn’t expected them to go so far as to hire someone to kill June. No one would make that mistake again, including Tex.
“So what’s he finding?”
“Nothing yet, but he’s scouring the dark web for any mention of ancient coins for sale. He promised he’d be in touch soon. He wants to make up for what happened to June, even though we keep telling him that wasn’t his fault,” JJ said.
“If West finds out Marlowe isn’t in that prison in Thailand anymore, he could panic. Do something stupid—like contact the authorities. Technically, Marlowe’s still a fugitive,” Bob said, voicing the concern that had been rattling around in his brain for a few days, ever since they’d made it into Cambodia and the chances of them getting back to the US had increased exponentially.
