Push

48. He Refused to Believe

TOBY

I dumped the portacot by the front door. Two suitcases and the overstuffed baby bag were stacked and waiting, and a duffle had been tossed on top. Gwen must have packed that one. I tugged back the zipper to see her laptop, the printed copies of the clinic books and wads of paper stuffed inside.

I darted a look at Gwen. She was sitting on the bottom step, her phone pressed to her ear, still on the line to the police.

I pointed to the duffle and whispered, "No working this weekend."

Gwen mumbled an 'excuse me' and held the phone away from her ear. "It's not work. It's to cover our asses. It's all our legal and personal papers. The trust documents. The books. I even dumped the crap from my bill's drawer in there. Weird shit's happening, Tobes. We shouldn't take any chances."

The adrenaline that had burned through my body only simmered now, but even if I was calmer and could string together coherent thoughts beyond a whirlwind of just 'Go, go, go!', we were still going on our impromptu vacation. Gwen was right—we shouldn't take any chances.

She waved a hand at me and then held up three fingers.

"The cops are three minutes away?" I asked.

She nodded.

Go Time.

This was where I could be useful for once. It was time to pack the car, talk to the cops, and sort out the wanker still hovering outside my yard. Grimacing, Gwen had suggested I might have been overreacting about Romeo. He'd stepped in to help diffuse a situation with my mother and gotten Marnie home safely. Whoop-de-doo. A stalker with a hero complex.

With the duffle slung over my shoulder, I opened the front door, grabbed the portacot and a suitcase, and headed for the driveway.

"Buonasera," Gwen's new friend called out to me.

I flipped him off. "Buonasera." What did that even mean? Hi? Piss off? I hoped it meant piss off.

Vaguely amused, Romeo's eyebrow went up. "Going somewhere?"

"Yeah." I slid the portacot into the trunk and called back to him over my shoulder, "Your mum's!"

He laughed, but his calm demeanor suddenly shifted when red and blue lights lit up the street. Scowling, his eyes narrowed on me before flicking back to the police car pulling up outside.

I grinned at him. "Well, whatta you know? Looks like the party's at my place tonight!" His scowl deepened, which only made my smile bigger. "You gonna stick around? I can't wait to introduce you to a couple of my friends... Sergeant Go Fuck Yourself and Constable Keep the Fuck Away From My Wife."

Romeo's lips twitched, but instead of tossing a barb back at me, he pulled his phone out of his jacket and called someone. Better be his lawyer. He was toast.

I had a brief conversation with the two police officers before pointing them to the penis extension parked just past my driveway. When Romeo started bullshitting about going for a drive and stopping to stretch his legs, I rolled my eyes and made my way back to the house for the rest of our bags.

My phone rang. Not one of my contacts, so I ignored it. I didn't have time for telemarketers or scammers. A message buzzed.

Answer your phone, sweetheart.

Just...great. My Christmas sweater buddy was the last person I wanted to talk to in all this chaos. Why was Liam calling me anyway? How did he even get my number? Against my better judgment, when my phone rang again, I answered it.