Page 10 of Lure

“For?” Alphabet asked as he got the van started.

“For the music. Driver controls it or do I get some say?”

Chapter

Four

ALPHABET

It was almost one in the morning and I hadn’t heard from the guys for more than two hours. Going radio silent wasn’t unusual. They were all more than capable of looking after themselves, but there was an itch in between my shoulder blades that seemed to increase with every minute that passed.

Gracie waking up helped allay at least one of my worries. Though, I kept one eye on her too. Her speech hadn’t been slurred earlier, but it had beenslow. I couldn’t imagine her head felt great.

Another reason I remained intensely aware of the passage of time. I wanted Voodoo to give me some direction on what meds she could have. We had a whole damn kit in the back, though I was leery of giving her anything without consultation.

A glance at my watch told me I was still heading in a rough northwest direction. We’d crossed into Mexico via New Mexico, our route out would take us via California. There were a couple of spots we had friends that could grease the wheels.

If we had to go overland, we’d do that too. I’d rather avoid having to take her on foot though. She didn’t need to push it.Her breathing didn’t sound labored and she wasn’t complaining about any chest pain. If she’d complained of either, I’d have asked to check her ribs.

“The stations here are shit,” she muttered after her umpteenth attempt to find one we could even tune in. So far the closest we’d come was a news station. We’d listened for all of about five minutes before the signal dropped again.

“It’s the reception,” I said by way of apology. “There’s no bluetooth in here or I’d offer to play something from my phone.” As it was, if we tried to just listen to my phone it wouldn’t be loud enough over the rattle of the ancient van.

The vehicle was great for traveling incognito but it definitely lacked any amenities. Not something we normally worried about. Gracie deserved better. Another glance at my watch told me that only five minutes had passed since my prior check.

Impatience crept through me. I debated trying to call them but that would break with protocol. Then again, our protocols didn’t take Gracie into account. Putting a pin in that, I made a mental note to update our protocols. We needed better ones.

“Are you okay?” The soft question punctured the bubble of worry around me. Goblin had left the bench in the back to come up to sit on the open space between us. His soft wuff was a reminder he was there.

“I will be,” I told Gracie rather than lie to her. “As much as I want to tell you that there is nothing to worry about, it wouldn’t be fair to mislead you.”

“Well, I kind of figured we had things to worry about. I mean…” She lifted a hand to motion to herself with a kind of wry smile. “I know that I look like I have all of this handled, but not sure I’m doing that great either.”

“Head still hurt?”

“I’ll live,” she said in a kind of droll voice that I didn’t care for. “I’d say I’ve had worse, but pretty sure that wouldn’t be trueeither. As epically shit weeks go, this has to be in the top five, probably top three. Maybe top two.”

“You have something that tops this?” Did I really want to know? To be fair, I could think of a few incidents in my own life that seemed worse than her past week or two, but that was comparing apples and oranges. I’d signed up for my shit.

She definitelyhadn’t.

“The week my mom died,” she said and all the air went out the teasing jokes I’d been trying to think of to alleviate the mood. “We knew it was coming, didn’t make it any less hard.”

Turning her head to look out the window again, she sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, because what else could I offer? “It’s just you and your sister, right?” I’d been putting together a lot of info on her, but I hadn’t finished the deep dive. There was an older brother—deceased—as well as the deceased mother. Nothing on the father. Just absent.

The majority of the background came from her sister and herself. On the surface, Gracie lived a very public life. Yet, comparing what was available publicly about her with what I’d put together interacting with her… There was just so much more to her than the public face she let the rest of the world see.

The woman in the van with me was not the woman portrayed in the gossip columns and articles. If anything, she seemed so much more real and down to earth.

“Yes,” Grace answered with the longest, most profound sigh. “Hopefully, anyway.”

I frowned. “Gracie…”

“Don’t promise me we will find her. Don’t ask me to keep trusting you when you can’t even promise to let me go. You need your illusions and lies. I need mine.” The flatness in her words chilled me. We had asked her exactly that.Ihad, not even all that long ago.

“I want to find her for you,” I offered.

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