Geek Chic Page 5

  By the time she left that afternoon a little after six, she felt even worse than she had that morning.

  I could always detour up Nebraska on the way home…

  Stop it!

  When she pulled into the driveway at Lu’ana and Reggie’s house, both their cars sat parked in the driveway. As she walked in the front door, Bebe spotted her and started screeching with joy from where she sat on a blanket in the living room, reaching her arms out and up for her.

  Any troubled thoughts vanished from Nami’s mind. She set her purse down on the back of the couch before she walked over and scooped the baby up into her arms to blow raspberries on her sweet cheeks.

  Da’von sat nearby, on the floor, his back against the couch and his laptop propped on his thighs. “That’s gross.” But he smiled.

  Another familiar routine.

  Bebe squealed with delight as Nami tucked her against her hip. “Where’s your momma, little thang?” Nami carried her into the kitchen, where Lu’ana stood at the stove.

  “You’re staying for dinner, sis,” Lu’ana said. “Don’t even try to argue. I had a roast in the slow cooker all day. You can take a plate home for Malyah.”

  “Well, since you twisted my arm.”

  Her younger sister leaned in for a kiss on the cheek, her eyebrow arching when she spotted Nami wearing regular clothes and not her uniform. “No driving today? I thought today was a driving day.”

  “I swapped days with that stupid Danice yesterday. Won’t do that again.” She realized after she said it that she should have kept her mouth shut.

  Lu’ana turned. “Why?”

  Nami thought fast. “Turned out she just wanted two days off in a row during the week. I thought it was for something important.”

  “Oh.”

  Nami breathed a sigh of relief when her sister turned back to the stove.

  “Da’von said you were real quiet this morning. Everything okay?”

  Dang it.

  “Same ole. I think he’s frustrated with me that I won’t get a computer of my own.” That was a partial truth. Anytime she needed to look something up, she asked Da’von to do it for her.

  “Maybe Santa will bring you one this year.”

  Nami swatted her on the ass. “No. You want to spend that money, spend it on Da’von, or on Malyah. Or on this little one.” She blew another raspberry against the toddler’s cheek, making her squeal with delight. “Not on me.”

  Lu’ana let out a sigh. “Why won’t you let us do things for you? You’ve spent your life doing them for us.”

  “Because that’s just how it is, and how it should be,” she insisted.

  “You need to let me take you out some night. Me and you and Malyah. Lara, too. Girls night out.”

  Part of her wanted that.

  Part of her couldn’t make herself accept anything from her younger sister, even though she knew how irrational that was. Lu’ana and Reggie were doing okay. They weren’t rich, but they had good jobs and paid their bills.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “And you’ll say no, won’t you?”

  Nami turned to leave the kitchen. “Then why you even gonna ask?”

  Chapter Six

  The next afternoon, Beck nervously paced back and forth behind the bus shelter while Dewi stood under the shade of a nearby tree.

  “Calm down,” she said.

  “What if she’s not there?”

  “It’s the same time as yesterday. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “What if they change routes?”

  “What if she is there?”

  He stopped and turned to look at Dewi. “Oh, my god. What if she is?”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “I do! I—” His jaw snapped shut on his next words.

  “You’re scared.”

  He nodded.

  Dewi walked over, took his hands in hers, and gave them a gentle squeeze. Up until a few weeks ago, when she first met Ken, she and Beck had been more than just partners.

  Much more.

  Although she’d known all along she wasn’t the mate for Beck, the way he’d known it about her as well.

  “You’ll find her, and we’ll help you figure it out,” Dewi said. “Have faith.”

  “What if she’s taken?”

  “And what if she’s single and ready for a handsome stranger to sweep her off her feet? Stop thinking of reasons this won’t work before we’ve even found her.”

  What lurked in the back of Dewi’s mind and she didn’t want to admit was that she had a strong suspicion the hunt for N. Drexler might not go as smoothly—or as quickly—as Beck hoped.

  But for the sake of their sanity, Dewi really hoped it happened sooner rather than later. Dewi knew Beck would be practically useless for handling pack council business, or his Enforcer duties, until this was resolved.

  Not that she blamed him, because she didn’t. She couldn’t. She remembered too clearly the way she’d felt when she’d scented Ken. It had been an all-consuming obsession, a need, a hunger greater than anything she’d ever dreamed of, an unslakable thirst, until she sank her teeth into Ken’s shoulder and marked him as hers.

  Her mate.

  Forever.

  Beck started pacing again. When Dewi spotted the bus in the distance, Beck stood on the far side of the shelter, out of sight until the bus pulled up and stopped in front of them and the door opened.

  The man behind the wheel stared at them, waiting for them to get on.

  Beck rushed up to the doorway and peered inside. “Where’s the driver who was here yesterday?”

  “What?”

  “There was another driver. Yesterday. A woman.”

  “Buddy, there’s about ten different drivers who run this route all the time. You getting on or not?”

  “N. Drexler,” Beck said. “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only been driving this route a couple of weeks. You want to file a complaint against her or something?”

  “I…no.” He stepped off the bus. “Sorry. Go on.”

  The driver shrugged, closed the door, and pulled back into traffic.

  Beck walked over to the shelter’s bench and sat, dejected, head in his hands. “Dammit.”

  Dewi sat next to him and draped an arm around his shoulders. “We’ll sit here and wait for the next one,” she said. “It’s supposed to be here in about forty minutes.”

  “What if she’s not on that one?” His voice, while soft, almost sounded like a mournful howl.

  Her heart broke for him. “And what if she is? We haven’t even really started yet. Just have faith.”

  “It’s hard to have faith when every instinct tells me I’ll never see her again.”

  She shook him. “Don’t give up. Please?” She hated seeing the man look so dejected, broken.

  Like a kicked puppy.

  They waited for the next bus, but didn’t even bother to get on when the male driver opened the door.

  “Sorry,” Dewi said to the driver as Beck turned and walked away without saying anything. “He forgot to get something.”

  The driver shrugged, closed the door, and pulled away.

  Beck was heading across the grassy swale toward the apartment complex parking lot where they’d left his car when Dewi caught up with him.

  “Come on, Beck. Next one is in an hour. We’ll catch it.”

  “No. It’s over.”

  She caught up with him before he reached the driver’s door, getting between him and the car. “Listen to me,” she said. “I won’t let you give up.”

  When he met her gaze, she realized there were tears in his eyes.

  Something she’d never seen, had never expected to see from the fierce Alpha wolf.

  It broke her heart.

  “It wasn’t meant to be, okay?” he quietly said. He sounded…broken. “Just…drop it.”

  “Jeez, we’ve been at this for less than a day, huh? Don’t give up before we’ve even h
ad a chance to really look.”

  He leaned against the door. “It feels like there’s a hole in my heart,” he quietly said. “In my soul. Like it’s empty, and I didn’t realize how empty it was until I met her. Now it hurts.”

  “Then let’s not give up. This isn’t the end of the search, it’s only the beginning.”

  He seemed to consider it. “I just can’t do any more today,” he quietly said. “I don’t have it in me to feel the disappointment again today. It’s like a knife slicing through my guts.”

  She took the keys from his hand and gently pushed him toward the passenger side. “I’ll drive. Let’s go back to my place and see if Ken’s found out anything.”

  * * * *

  Unfortunately, Ken still hadn’t come up with any information about N. Drexler, the HART bus driver.

  “What about hacking into their computer system?” Beck asked. “Didn’t you say you could do that?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “But you said you could do it.”

  “No, I said I shouldn’t and didn’t want to do that.”

  “But you can do it?”

  Ken looked at Dewi. “Am I speaking English?”

  “He’s upset,” she said, feeling sorry for Beck, and feeling more than a little guilty. “Remember what I was like? Times that by a thousand since he had to let her go.” Had Dewi realized what was going on, she would have told Beck to stay on the bus. She hadn’t needed his help to take down Palver.

  When it came to mates, once again poor Beck got shafted.

  And not in the good way.

  “You’ve got to help me find her,” Beck implored. “Please.”

  “I’m going to do everything within my power to help you,” Ken said, “but I’m not some uber-hacker. It’s not like in the movies where you type a few keystrokes and stuff blows up.”

  “Can we find someone like that?” Beck asked, sounding hopeful. “Who can do that? Hire them. I’ll pay them anything—”

  “Dewi—”

  “I know,” she said, turning Beck and herding him toward the door. “Come on. Let’s leave him alone.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Let us know if you get a lead.”

  “You don’t need to sheepdog me,” Beck complained as she steered him out the back sliders and onto the screened lanai that covered the pool and hot tub.

  “Yes, I do. He can’t do anything with us breathing down his neck. He’ll come up with an answer, one way or another. Just give him time.”

  “I don’t have time.” He collapsed into a chair at the table.

  “Yes, you do. It doesn’t feel like it, but you do. This is only a temporary delay. He’ll locate her, and then we’ll go find her, and then you can claim her.”

  He stretched out and threw his head back. “She’s probably taken,” he mumbled.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “What am I going to do if she’s taken?”

  While Dewi felt sorry for him, it was hard to see her Alpha partner whining like a freaked out Chihuahua. “Dude, sac up and stop thinking about what-ifs.”

  “That’s easy for you to say!”

  “No, it’s not. Now, I love you because you’re family, but I’ve had about enough of this mopey bullshit. We have a job to do, and we need to do it. We have shit to take care of, pack business that’s still got to be handled. Let Ken do his job and you keep doing your job. If nothing else, it’ll take your mind off this for a little while.”

  * * * *

  When Badger called out a five-minute warning until dinner was ready, Dewi and Beck went to the office first to check on Ken.

  “No, I haven’t tracked her down yet,” Ken said, “but I have an idea.”

  “What?” Beck asked.

  “HART has several regional transit centers.” He pulled up a PDF map on his laptop and turned it so they could see the screen. “See? We start out by spending a day, or more, at each one.”

  “How is that going to help us find her?” Beck asked. “What if she drives a route that doesn’t go there?”

  “All the routes go to a transit center. Either a local one, or one of the park and ride express routes. Some go through transfer centers, too.”

  “What if she changes routes? What if she doesn’t drive the same one all the time?”

  “Either we’ll find her, or you’ll sniff her out and it’ll give you a lead. There are a finite number of busses and routes. Yes, it might take us a while, but until I can find a way to hack into the HART computer system without the NSA finding out, this is going to be your best bet. Quite honestly, this is your best bet, even if I can eventually hack into the system without getting caught.”

  “What about calling them? Can’t you call and ask about her?”

  “I tried that first thing this morning. They don’t give out information on drivers. Privacy issues. You’ll probably find her faster this way. The bus you were on, that route goes from the University Transit Center, all the way downtown to the Marion Transit Center. You start with one of those two, sit there all day, and wait. Lots of people, it’ll be easy to blend in.”

  “Transit centers?”

  Ken turned his laptop to face him again. “Yeah. I’ve used them before plenty of times. The busses, I mean. Remember, I didn’t have a car. How do you think I got around when I needed to go places that weren’t close to my apartment? I didn’t ride my bike all the way across the county.” He stood and rounded the desk as if to head to the dining room, but Beck didn’t move.

  “So there’s a good chance I’ll find her this way?” Beck asked.

  “Better than good. I suspect you will find her this way if you keep at it every day and are methodical about it.”

  Beck grinned and slowly stalked toward Ken.

  Ken backed away, angling toward Dewi. “Dude, what are you doing?”

  “Come here,” Beck said.

  Before Ken could dart out of the way, Beck grabbed him in a bear hug.

  “Oh, look, Dewi,” Ken said. “He’s hugging me. Why is he hugging me?”

  “Just let it happen, sweetie,” she said. “Wait him out. He’ll be done in a minute.”

  “I love you, man!” Beck said as he lifted Ken off his feet and spun him around. “Absolutely love you!”

  “Beck,” Dewi drawled. “Ease up. You’re wrinkling my mate.”

  “Yeah,” Ken said, gasping. “You’re wrinkling me.”

  He finally set Ken down on his feet again. Then he grabbed Ken’s head in both hands and kissed his forehead before finally releasing him. “Sorry, but dude, I love you!”

  “Message received.” Ken wiped his forehead with his hand. “For future reference, a simple handshake will suffice.”

  * * * *

  They started out the next morning before dawn, heading to the University Transit Center. Ken sat in the backseat of the truck, with his laptop and a hot cup of coffee, while Dewi and Beck sat in the front and kept their eyes on the busses.

  Beck made several passes through the facility when he spotted a driver who might fit the bill, but each time it turned out to be a false alarm. By six o’clock that morning, they still hadn’t located her. Beck’s mood steadily deteriorated with every passing minute.

  “Why did I think this would even be possible?” he grumbled from the passenger seat.

  “Stop it,” Ken said. “The system has over two hundred busses, trolleys, vans, and other vehicles. It’s going to take a while and we’ve been at it less than a few hours. We’ll find her.”

  “Can’t we pay a precocious high-schooler to hack their system or something?”

  “Stop,” Dewi said.

  “There’s about fifty routes, total,” Ken said, “when you account for all the express routes, trolleys, all of those. I suspect if she’s driving a bus, chances are she won’t be driving one of the vans or trolleys.”

  “Why?” Beck asked.

  “They probably require something different in terms of training, or they might even be better rou
tes. I’m spitballing, here. Work with me. It’s a theory. I’ll admit I could be wrong, but it’s a logical starting point.”

  Beck grunted but didn’t interrupt him again.

  “We spend several days here at this transit center before we move to the next one,” Ken said. “That will cover the potential for her having a couple of days off in a row. If we don’t find any hint of her after several days, we move on to the next one. And so on. Eventually, we will find her. We might even have to cover the same transit center more than once, but the law of averages is in our favor. Your job is to stay patient and listen to us and not give up hope.”

  “That’s easier said than done,” Beck darkly muttered.

  Chapter Seven

  It had been five days since Mystery Hunk kissed Nami and then run off her bus and out of her life. Meanwhile, her world had seemingly tipped on its axis even though nothing on the surface appeared to be different.

  Why do I feel so empty now?

  It didn’t make any sense. None whatsoever.

  I really need a boyfriend, I guess.

  If some random crazy white man kissing her and then running off could leave her feeling that way, it had to mean it was a sign from the Universe that she needed to do something different with her life.

  Right?

  Right.

  It didn’t help that she’d awakened that morning to a growing sense of unease that seemingly had no source.

  Well, no source other than Mystery Hunk’s kiss five days prior.

  Which made no sense, because Danice had never had an issue like that on her route before. At least, not with anyone matching that guy’s description. When Nami had mentioned it to Danice again in text yesterday, couched in terms of checking on her, Danice had reported no issues. Unless Danice was lying to her, which she doubted, in this case. Drivers tended to look out for each other in terms of safety issues.

  So, apparently, it was a random event. He wasn’t even a regular rider on the route. Nami was used to dealing with drunks and jerks and assholes of every kind and gender. She’d even rebuffed sexual advances and kicked people off her bus for misconduct.