The Strip - Max

41 / Chantel

I had been hoping to meet the new girl, Zoey, but she had left the club shortly before the party ended, so introductions would have to wait. I cleaned up and got ready to leave then noticed Tyler rushing through the lounge as I was heading towards the exit. He blew through the door behind the bar like he was on a mission, and I assumed he was going to his office. The only time I had seen him moving with such determination was that evening after the party with the assholes from Coco, years earlier.

"Everything okay?" I asked, despite the obvious. Something was far from okay.

"Fuck! I need a charger. My phone's gonna die. One for the car!" he said as he dug through the drawers of his desk.

"Vic has one in his car. What's going on?"

"Chantel... something happened. I gotta go."

"Oh no—"

"Just hold on... okay," Tyler begged into the phone pressed to his ear. "Don't do anything, please. I'll be there soon, just tell me where you are." The tone of his voice as he spoke to Chantel held a mix of desperation and worry that gripped my heart like a vise.

I called Vic and asked him to get the car charger from his car while Tyler wrote a message on a pad and pushed it in front of me. I read it and nodded as I encouraged Vic to move faster. As Tyler headed towards his office door, I jotted a phone number from my contact list onto the notepad then handed him my phone with my lock code scribbled on another sticky note.

I grabbed the handset of the desk phone and frantically tapped the digits of the phone number I had written on the slip of paper. I had kept in contact with Mike Wallace, the city police officer that spoke with me years earlier when I was on the edge of crisis. I was calling him on his personal cell phone while a woman in another city was crumbling. My hands were trembling, and I could barely hit the keys on the number pad.

"Mike! Sorry but I need your help," I cried.

My entire body trembled as I conveyed what I believed Tyler had wanted me to ask of Mike. Chantel was on the verge of the unthinkable and I felt the weight of my task bearing down on me.

"Tyler has my cell in case you need to call him," I said before I disconnected the call.

While I waited for Mike to call me back on Tyler's office line, I made a dozen frantic calls, finally waking Ryder from his sleep. Minutes later he was parked outside the Kent Riverside Motel.

The ring of the phone jolted me out of my thoughts. It was Megan calling me back from a hotel in Malbec. I explained my panicked voice message then let her try to get back to sleep while I willed the phone to ring again.

"Bridget," Mike said from the office doorway. "I was just a few blocks away when you called."

"So? Any word?" I asked as I wrapped Mike in a hug.

"I called the county sheriff's office. A trooper caught up to Tyler to escort him in. They called up a crisis officer and have a patrol officer parked at the motel."

"My cousin's husband is there. He's trained as a field medic... I—"

"Yes, he's already introduced himself to the crisis officer. They are standing by. I spoke with Tyler. Good idea; giving Tyler your phone is a big help. He's still got her on the call. He's keeping her calm, so we'll just hold back. Stay out of sight and keep her stress level from getting the better of her."

"Shit!" I said as I grabbed the phone. "I forgot to call my husband."

"Husband? I didn't know you got married."

"Oh, ahhh, we didn't... yet. But I just started calling him that and—"

Dan had called my cellphone seconds earlier when I hadn't returned home on time and was surprised when Tyler answered. After explaining everything again, Dan was on his way to the club to sit and wait it out with me.