Read Following Fabian for Free Online Page A

time he’d gotten into contact with Shrew & Company’s owner, their conversation hadn’t been an easy one. He’d rehearsed what bit of English he’d introduced himself with, and that opening had gone fine, but things had gone downhill from there. Dana had to send Sarah to talk to him, and Sarah turned out to be a formerly bilingual woman who’d lost her Spanish around the same time as her baby teeth. They’d gotten on well enough, though. Under different circumstances, he might have made a pass at the unusual woman, but the more pressing consideration at the time had been finding Felipe.
    “What does she want?” He closed the curtain and ducked his head under the shower spray. Dana could wait three minutes.
    “To debrief, I guess.”
    “Don’t understand.”
    “Talk to you. Learn what you know about Jacques.”
    He mulled the words over and let the context congeal in his mind as he scrubbed his greasy scalp. “Okay.”
    Judging by the fact the curtain didn’t move and he didn’t hear the door close, he assumed Astrid was still there.
    “Yes?”
    “Phone.”
    “Okay.”
    Impatient little wench.
    He finished rinsing his hair and turned off the water. Nudging the curtain back a bit, he grabbed a couple of towels from the rack and pulled them into the shower cavity.
    She was still standing there. Still waiting. She behaved as if he was going to cut and run, but where would he go with no clothes or shoes on?
    He stepped out, towel-clad, and she held her slick little smartphone out to him.
    “I get dressed.” He didn’t mean for it to sound like a request, but somehow it managed to come out that way.
    “Later.” She nudged the phone up to his ear. “Say hello.”
    He sighed. “Hello?”
    “ Mierda, eres realmente vivo. ”
    Not Dana. Felipe .
    Fabian slumped against the countertop and blew out a breath. In Spanish, he said, “It’s good to hear your voice.”
    “And me yours. How are you? Are you hurt? This call is being recorded, by the way. Don’t take it personally. The girls need it to take notes. Make plans.”
    “That’s fine, and I’m good. Jacques kept me sedated on and off so I couldn’t phase and slip away.”
    “We figured something like that was going on when Sarah couldn’t get a read on you. None of the psychics could find you.”
    “Yes. I wish I could say I fought and got free, but the truth was, the shit was just less effective the more they used it on me. It’d still knock me out, but for shorter amounts of time. I had a couple of occasions to get up and run, but if I ran, we’d probably never pin him down again.”
    Felipe was quiet for a long while, and then said, “You stayed on purpose? Why? You’ve never been the vengeful sort.”
    It was true. He wasn’t. He’d always been too laidback for revenge, but exhaustion broke people in unexpected ways.
    “I guess a lot of things change when you have nothing to keep you company but your dreams for weeks on end.”
    “If I could leave right now to come help you I would, but I can’t leave Sarah.”
    “Why Sarah? You helping her with something? Did the Shrews put you to work?” Fabian used his palm to clear the mirror fog and studied his clean-shaven chin. Just one nick. He grunted appreciatively at his rusty skill.
    “Put me to work? Yes, I work for Dana now. With Sarah and all the rest. Oh, and Mr. Tolvaj and one of his brothers.”
    “Tolvaj? Really? The old fortuneteller’s favorite?” Fabian chuckled and let the towel at his waist fall to the floor. “Wondered why I hadn’t seen him around with his sadistic brothers.”
    “He and the one brother defected. You were already gone by then. The circus had packed up and left North Carolina with you, so you weren’t around when we had a bit of a shootout with Jacques outside of Asheville. It was utter chaos. We freed those Were-bears the crew abducted—ask Astrid to fill you in about them because it’s important—and Jacques shot at Sarah. He didn’t