“Why’s the door locked?”
Wyatt grins, but I place my finger over his mouth and give him a warning glare. He retaliates by squeezing my breast.
“It locks when it shuts. I’ve got an armful of laundry, so I’ll be up there in five, okay?”
She mumbles something inaudible and then calls out, “Whatever, see you in a few.”
I count to a hundred before I yell out her name. When she doesn’t answer, I look up into Wyatt’s eyes. “You like to make your presence known, don’t you?” My voice is teasing, but the look on his face is serious. The pit of my stomach coils. I don’t want seriousness from him—not tonight.
“Where you’re concerned, Ky, yeah, I do.”
I touch the base of my throat, massaging the area carefully, and watch him as he heads to the door. “You’ll be in your room?”
He glances over his shoulder. “I’ll be there.”
“Cal’s not going to show up, is he?” I ask as he steps out into the hallway.
Wyatt scratches a hand through his blond hair and cocks his head to the side, grinning. “Not if he doesn’t want his fucking fingers broken.”
“Well aren’t you Mr. Effing Possessive.”
As he closes the laundry room door, he rakes his deep blue eyes over me, sending another flash of desire speeding through my body. “Damn right I am, Bluebird.”
Finally alone, I smile to myself as I stuff my laundry, which is still slightly wet, into the bag before I take the elevator back to my room. Heidi’s standing outside of our door with her arms crossed over her chest, scowling.
I stop in my tracks. “You okay?”
“That asshole Finn bailed on me, but I’m alright.” She stretches her arms out over her head and yawns theatrically. “I just want my bed.” As I dig in my back pocket for the key card, she tilts her head to the side. “You look way too happy for having just done laundry.”
I bite my lip to suppress a grin as I unlock our door. I’m contemplating whether or not I should tell her, but then I flip on the light switch.
And my heart sinks.
Every inch of our room has been rummaged through. There are clothes, both Heidi’s and mine, thrown all over the place, and all the dresser drawers have been pulled out.
“What are you—” Heidi begins, sliding past me to get inside. Like me, she stops in her tracks. She sums up exactly how I’m suddenly feeling in the single word she says next. “Shit.”
Chapter Five
Over the last several years, I’ve gotten used to dealing with cops, not because of myself but due to the notoriety of the band. There’s the loud and completely out of hand hotel parties, Sin’s drunken habit of dropping his pants and pissing on the side of the street (or wherever else he happens to be standing at the time), and of course, my brother’s foul temper, which has gotten Lucas into trouble time and time again. Still, I’ve got to admit that going through the motions of filing a report with the police officer who shows up at this hotel drains my energy.
Since we can’t go back into our room yet, the staff at The Veranda is nice enough to set us up in one of the smaller event rooms located on the main floor while they prepare us another room. A Happy Anniversary sign is still hanging at the front of the room, and napkins congratulating Moira and Tom on reaching twenty-five years together are stacked on the table where the manager left us sitting.
“They’re probably more worried about losing guests due to a break-in than us. I mean, I’m pretty sure they don’t really give a shit about our safety,” Heidi says once the manager leaves the room.
I roll my eyes. It’s all I can do to stop myself from saying something that I’ll later regret. For starters, Heidi’s key card mysteriously went missing while she was out with Shiner Bock. Then, while we stood outside the door of our wrecked room, the person across the hall wandered out and drunkenly told us—through sloppy bites of loaded nachos that made my stomach turn—that the guy from last night had just left. It didn’t take a detective to figure out that Heidi had been royally screwed over by Finn, the so-so one-night stand.
I hear footsteps coming in my direction, and I flick a wary gaze up from the blank police report to take in Officer Townsend, the police officer who answered the call. “Mrs. Martin—” he begins.
I cringe but quickly jump to correct him. “It’s Kylie,” I say, glancing up at him. Out of habit, I run my thumb over the last name tattooed around my ring finger. “Or Ms. Wolfe works, too. I never got around to changing my last name after my divorce.” It was more than seven years ago, but I’m not about to tell him that.
A deep flush spreads around the crown of Officer Townsend’s balding head. “I’m sorry about that, ma’am.”
There’s no need for him to apologize for calling me by my legal name, so I manage a ghost of a smile and shake my head.
When I drop my attention down to the sheet of paper sitting on the banquet table, Officer Townsend adds, “You’ll want to call your credit card companies and let them know your cards have been stolen. You’ll need to keep a copy of the report for your bank and a copy for your reference because it has your case number on it.”
I slump in the folding metal chair. For a long time, I simply stare at the police report, letting the typed words blur together into a dizzying cluster of black and white. My brain is such a catastrophic mess from what happened in the laundry room with Wyatt to finding out my room was robbed that I didn’t even think about taking precautions to make sure my bank account and my brother’s business account won’t be wiped out.
“Mrs. Ma—Kylie?” Officer Townsend takes the seat directly across from me, and I lift my face to his. “Do you need help filling out the report?” His heavy accent is gentle, but I shake my head.
“No, I’m fine, thank you.” I pick up the pen to begin writing out my statement. It won’t be much, considering I was bent over a running dryer with my jeans pulled around my knees while my room was being ransacked. As I scribble my signature and the date across the bottom of the page, I work my bottom lip between my teeth. “Can you show me what I’ll need to do to follow-up on this?”
Officer Townsend spends the next few minutes showing me where my case number is located on the report and what phone number I’ll need to call in order to check the status. When he’s finished, he asks, “Will you be in the area for a while?”
I rake my hands through my blue-and-black hair, pulling it up into a stubby ponytail on top of my head before dropping the strands to fall around my face. “No, I’m heading back to Los Angeles in the morning.”
The moment those words fall from my lips, realization hits me hard, making me wince, but Officer Townsend doesn’t seem to notice. He’s speaking to Heidi, explaining everything to her now.
Shiner Bock has my credit cards, which would be okay because I can get back home without my Visa or American Express. I’ve survived traveling without money before, and I can easily do so again. But when he cleaned out my room, he took everything in the nightstand drawer, including my ID.
I’ve had my entire makeup bag confiscated by TSA. There’s no way in hell I’m getting through the gate tomorrow without my license.
Or renting a car.
Or even boarding a Greyhound bus.
Fuck.
Clenching my teeth together, I amend my statement with Officer Townsend. “I might be going back to L.A., in the morning.” My breath hitches, but I swallow down the anxiety, making myself continue. “My license is gone, so I don’t think I have a way to get on my flight.”
He gives me a sympathetic nod. “We’re going to do everything we can to recover all your belongings, ma’am.”
As Officer Townsend escorts us out of the banquet hall, so we can book a different room for the night, Heidi shoots me a pitiful look. “I’m so sorry, Ky,” she whispers.