Page 263 of One Winter Knight
“I’ll teach you all sorts of things, Pumpkin,” Fiona promised. She took Saoirse’s hand. “Let’s get supplies and go retrieve my mate. We have dinner with my dads tomorrow and we cannot miss it.”
Oh, right. I’d forgotten about that.
They left.
Dusty gazed longingly at the chicken. “I’ll put this away. Or should I make to-go boxes for us to eat on the train? I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
“That. We’ll have a bit of a journey to get there, so it makes sense to eat something. Don’t want this nice chicken to go to waste,” I agreed as I stared at my phone. Yep, the train was the fastest way to get there, given we didn’t have a private jet.
Fiona’s dads didn’t have one either.
“You think they’ll bring weapons?” Dusty got down someleftover takeout containers and started packing food, putting the rest away.
“We did mate with assassins.” I plugged everything into the train finder app. Oooh, this could work…
I also got a text from Saoirse asking me for the address and the name of the person we thought had Hale, so that she could have someone run a background search. I sent that to her. I still didn’t feel any panic from Hale, but they may have knocked him out.
By the time the ladies joined us, I’d found the best way to get there and reached out to Big Tad to see if we could get any other information. He offered to leave Hale’s truck at the local train station, with the keys in it, so we could use it.
Where the fuck did Hale live that that was even an option?
“Put these on under your sweaters.” Saoirse handed us bulletproof vests.
“Do you think we’ll need these?” I eyed it.
She shrugged. “Better safe than dead.”
We put them on. Fiona and Saoirse had backpacks. Dusty grabbed a bag and put the food in it.
“Did you pack us a picnic?” Saoirse’s eyebrows rose at the containers.
“We don’t want the food to go to waste and we haven't had dinner,” Dusty replied.
“Good idea, I worked hard making it,” Fiona said as we put on our shoes and left.
Once again, I was off to rescue someone by taking the train. But at the same time, I didn’t feel that Hale was in imminent danger. Yet.
“It really doesn’t take that long to get there,” Fiona said looking at this schedule as we sat on the ultra-bullet.
Dusty got out our dinners.
“Only because we got lucky and the schedules lined up.” I took a bite of the perfectly roasted chicken. “Fiona, this chicken isdelicious.”
Fiona took a bite and nodded. “It turned out so well. Did you bring any for Hale?”
Dusty shook his head. “I made him a plate and put it in the fridge with his name on it.”
The trip was quick, but at least we ate. When we got onto the regional train, I saw that Tad had called. I called back.
“Titty Tank only has partial footage of him being taken, the police are being unhelpful. They say it looks more like him going with a friend, and you should call tomorrow if he’s still missing,” Tad replied.
“Really? Thanks for looking into that.” Well, that was zero help.
“No problem. After I get Hale’s truck to the station, I’ll grab mine and I can do a little drive-by. I know where Clegg lives. Maybe I can do some recon and see what’s going on.”
“You really don’t have to,” I said, worried about involving people in anything dangerous.
“It’ll be helpful, you don’t know the area. Should I bring my rifle? Yeah, I should,” Big Tad said.
