“Do the SUVs no’ have hands-free phone capabilities?” Scotty asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Yes.” Sam nodded and bit her lip, her gaze shifting to the phone she’d set on the countertop.
“She would have taken her car and not one of our SUVs,” Donny pointed out, drawing their attention to his arrival in the room. “It looked pretty new and probably has hands-free capabilities too, though.”
“It does. She used it to call me just the other day,” Sam muttered. She picked up the phone and tried to call her again, only to end the call a moment later with a dissatisfied look on her face. Her gaze shifted to the clock on the wall once more, and she shook her head. “I don’t think she’s the type to be late.”
“Ye think right, lass. Beth is never late,” Scotty said, getting to his feet. “Donny, fetch a vehicle.”
“Are we going after her again?” Donny asked, eyes wide.
“Aye,” Scotty said grimly, walking toward him.
Nodding, Donny turned and hurried out of the room.
“I’ll explain to Mortimer when he comes looking for you,” Sam said solemnly. “Call as soon as you find her.”
“I will, lass,” Scott assured her as he left the kitchen.
Beth grimaced and glanced to the elevator panel as her phone began to ring again. She didn’t try to answer it. Whoever it was could wait until she reached her car, and could set down the box and bags she was carrying to grab her phone. If she ever got off this elevator, she thought with irritation.
The damned thing had stopped on every floor since she’d gotten on board, and it was going to continue to do so all the way down to the parking garage, thanks to an annoying little bugger who had hit every button on the elevator panel before getting off on her floor. If her hands hadn’t been full, Beth might have slapped the little brat’s mother for not controlling her child and making him behave.
Honestly, what was the matter with people anymore? In her day, the boy wouldn’t have dared to do something so bratty for fear of having his behind tanned. Instead, his mother had stood there ineffectively mewling, “Now, Tommy, don’t do that. Come along. Daddy’s waiting. Tommy.”
Sighing as the elevator stopped and the doors opened again, Beth leaned against the back wall of the elevator and briefly closed her eyes. She’d had nothing but delays and detours since heading out to fetch her clothes. Nearly every street she’d taken on the way here had been under construction, and then she’d got caught at train tracks for what had seemed like forever as a train had slowed, gone forward and backed up before starting forward again. It had been like the universe was trying to prevent her getting to her apartment.
Halfway here, Beth had begun to regret that she hadn’t just taken up the offer to use the Council credit card and buy all new items when she got to British Columbia. Now she wished she’d turned around then and headed back to the Enforcer house.
“Only twenty floors to the parking garage,” she muttered to herself with disgust as the doors closed. Shaking her head, she glanced down at everything she was carrying. She had an overnight bag over each arm, one with a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, a hairbrush, perfume, deodorant, her toothbrush, and all those other things a girl needed for a short trip. The second bag held another pair of jeans, a pair of black dress pants, more T-shirts, a dressier shirt, and the always-handy little black dress.
Beth had packed the first bag and started to leave, only to realize that Mortimer hadn’t told her how long this job might take or even what it entailed. Concerned that it might take longer than a day or two as she’d originally assumed, and that simple jeans and T-shirts might not suffice, she’d packed the second bag. She’d then also thrown a pair of high-heeled shoes and running shoes into the grocery bag that presently dangled from her left wrist, and then had packed away the set of her favorite knives, two custom-made guns, and her iPad into the zipped-up black carrier that dangled from her right wrist.
On top of all that, Beth was carrying a box filled with food that would go bad if she didn’t return within a day or two. If Mortimer told her that she should only be twenty-four hours or so, then she’d simply put it in one of the refrigerators in the garage behind the Enforcer house and bring it back on her return. However, if he said this job would take four days or more, she’d give it to Sam to either use or drop off at the nearest homeless shelter so that at least someone would get to eat it.
The elevator dinged again, and the doors opened. Beth glanced up at the panel to see that it was only the nineteenth floor. She started to scowl, and then pushed away from the wall and moved quickly off the elevator. She would take the stairs. It would be faster, and what she was carrying wasn’t really heavy, at least not to her. It was just awkward. The bags on either side bulged outward, bumping into the wall if she got too close on either side, and not having her hands free was a pain, as she learned when she reached the metal door to the stairwell.
“Brilliant,” Beth growled as she stared at the doorknob she couldn’t turn. Sighing, she set the box on the floor, half straightened to open the door, held it open with her foot, and bent to pick up the box again.
Huffing out a sigh, Beth started down the stairs at a jog, careful not to get too close to the wall or the railing to avoid bumping against one or the other and upsetting her stride. It was much quicker than the elevator with all its stops, and she managed to reach the parking level relatively quickly and without further delay. Beth had to set down the box again to open the door to the parking garage, and then to open the door of her red Ford Explorer and stow her gear inside, but soon she was inside and on her way.
It wasn’t until she pulled out of the parking garage that Beth recalled the two missed phone calls. She almost pulled over to see who they were from, but a glance at the digital clock on the dashboard made her decide against it. She’d already taken much longer than she’d expected, and was going to have to do a bit of speeding on the way back to make up time. Even then Mortimer would no doubt be waiting on her.