50 Shades of Drake 3 and 4

Chapter Eighty-One

    "No, no, no...I'm telling you, Drake is on this floor."

    "You're just trying to mess with my head again. Like that one time when you told me that Justin Bieber was staying here."

    A short, young dark-haired woman with her hair pulled back into bun raised a hand to her hip. "Fine, don't believe me."

    Her Puerto Rican friend, Stephanie Tellez, rolled her eyes. "Ugh, fine, Lexi. Show me."

    Lexi beamed and linked arms with her friend. "I knew you'd come around," she said, marching off into the direction of the private hospital rooms for VIP patients.

    "If you're about to show me Drake, tell me what he's in for," Stephanie commanded.

    "Malnutrition."

    Stephanie shook her head. "You're not even trying to make the story believable."

    Lexi stopped just short of the hospital room. "Stand behind me. I'll probably need to pretend to check his chart or something." She grabbed the door handle, turned it, and pushed the door open. "Mr. Graham?" she called out. There was usually a tall Black man who made sure to station himself outside of the hospital room or inside of the room, but she was pretty sure she just saw him in the cafeteria. Arching a look behind her, she crooked her finger. "Come in."

    Stephanie followed her in, but nervously grabbed onto Lexi's scrubs uniform.

    Lexi walked further into the room and covered her mouth to keep from squealing. There Drake was, lying in the hospital bed. Completely unconscious.

    Her friend gasped.

    "Steph, shh," Lexi said, holding an index finger up to her lips.

    "Take a picture of him, take a picture of him," Stephanie urged.

    "Wouldn't that be wrong?" Lexi fretted. "He looks all...sad and pathetic and helpless. It's not like I'd post it anywhere. We'd get in trouble if we did."

    Stephanie dug around into the pockets of her scrubs. "If you won't, I will."

    "You're insane," Lexi muttered, but moved to stand out of the way while her friend took the picture. "God. He's even more handsome in person. Like...what the fuck? How is that possible?"

    "His eyelashes are thicker than mine," Stephanie whined, snapping a picture and then moving closer to the bed so she could take a selfie. "I'm so mad at that."

    "We can't stay in here...that security guy that stays with him doesn't look like someone you'd want to piss off." Lexi dreamily looked towards the still figure on the bed one more time before ushering her friend out of the room.

    The tall Black man she'd spoken of was headed straight for them, and his gaze grew sharp and alert the moment he set eyes on them.

    Lexi halted her steps, and her back went ramrod straight.

    "Can I help you?" he asked in a thick, Jamaican accent.

    "I just needed to check Mr. Graham's chart," Lexi said, trying her best to sound professional.

    The man looked her up and down, seemingly taking in her nurse's scrubs. With a curt nod, he continued inside of the hospital room, closing the door behind him.

    Stephanie leaned heavily on Lexi. "I've never been so scared in my fucking life."

    "Me too," Lexi said, only just now able to breathe again.

    "I think I peed myself a little," Stephanie went on. "I was that scared."

    "You know...Steph...there's just some things that I don't need to know," Lexi told her. "And that...that was definitely one of those things."

    "My bad," Stephanie said, linking arms with her again.

~~~~~~

    "I was ordered to keep an eye on things," the police officer said when Brian pulled his Audi sedan alongside the squad car posted outside of his house. "The department wants to make sure that everything is okay here."

    "Why would your department order you to watch over my house?" Brian asked him. "Is it because...is it because you know about Palmer?"

    "I've said all that I can say," the officer told him.

    Brian licked his lips and glanced at Destiny, then turned back to the policeman. "Did...did Aubrey's mother send you to watch over us?"

    The officer started to shake his head, then stopped himself. "I've said all that I can say," he repeated.

    "Okay, then. Thank you...for watching over us, I guess." Brian pulled off and rolled up his window. "At least we know he's looking out for us."

    "It's definitely nice to know that he wasn't sent to kill us. If we can believe anything he said, that is." Beside him, Destiny was scrolling through the browser on her phone. She had announced that she was going to continue to check for Palmer or Aubrey sightings. "So...when we get D.C....what are we going to do, exactly?"

    "I don't know. We don't really have a plan, do we?"

    She shook her head emphatically while looking down at her phone.

    He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove through his neighborhood. "First and foremost, we need to check into our room. Eat something really quick. By then, I'll probably be starving. Then we'll track Palmer, and... I don't know. Start off with a little bit of surveillance, maybe? He could give us a clue as to whether or not he's holding Aubrey?"

    "I kind of just wanted to walk up to his house and knock on his door and search his house," she said, frowning down at her phone.

    "Yeah, because he'd let us do that," Brian joked, slanting a look at her.

    "I'm just...tired of all of this build up. I want to get in, see if he has Aubrey, and get out. The word 'surveillance' just makes it sound like it would go on for forever." She lowered her phone to her lap and rested her head against the headrest.

    "This...could end up being very dangerous," he warned her. "Maybe you should stay with a friend in D.C. while I look into all of this."

    "No, I'm going with you," she said firmly.

    "We're going in with...no weapons," he stated. "No weapons, no backup..."

    "Maybe we should go in with backup," she said, looking at him. "Before going to Palmer's, we should show the police your flash drive."

    "Destiny..."

    "I mean, under the circumstances that's what we should do. Aubrey said if anything happened to him...right? So if Palmer has him, that constitutes as something happening to him."

    "True," Brian agreed.

    "So that's what we should do. We go to the police and show them the flash drive."

    "A copy of the flash drive," he corrected her. "I'll give them a copy. I don't trust anyone with the original."

    "Okay."

    "Okay...we have a plan, then." A reasonably solid plan at that. Hang in there, Aubrey, he thought. We're coming for you, man.