Page 22 of Protect Me
“Good.” He nodded once. “Keep it that way.”
I saluted with a hand. This was one road that didn’t require exploring.
“Thanks,” I said when the silence became burdensome. “It was nice to get out of my place for a bit. And, you know. Food.”
Katelyn had stocked my place up, but with better health came a bigger appetite, and I’d zipped through the food in a few days. With my knee still on the mend, Hernandez yanked me from my hobbit-hole townhouse and forced me around people again for a few hours.
Tiring, but good.
He shrugged it off. “No problem. Next week, you’re helping me atabuela’s.She has me digging out the garden.”
I laughed, but he didn’t.
“C’mon, Vini,” I muttered under my breath. “Pick up the da—“
Her snippy tone cut through my ear immediately.
“What?”
I reared back. “Hold off, Kingslayer. Do I need to call back?”
Vini sighed. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have snapped at you. I was just falling asleep after a rough night.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. Talk to me.”
The sound of shuffling fabric made me think she’d just sat up. Guilt plagued me again. Maybe I shouldn’t have ignored the fact that she didn’t respond to my text messages within seconds. Regret faded quickly. Ihadto have answers.
Seven days was too long to wait. I should have texted Vini right after Kate’s anxiety attack and demanded answers. I hadn’t, though, because I’d promised. Now a week had passed and questions about Katelyn continued to plague me in a miserable onslaught. Beyond the annoying fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about her lay a truth I also didn’t want to acknowledge. I worried about her.
“How are you?” she asked. “How’s the knee? Amma said you finally called her.”
“I did.”
“Thank you. She’s been off my case for two seconds.”
“Sure. Sorry again. I saw Katelyn at the Frolicking Moose a week ago and I wanted to talk to you about it.”
A square of paper sat in my hand. Katelyn’s number. She’d put it behind a magnet on my fridge in case I needed it. I’d long since memorized the loopy, curving numbers. Already saved it in my phone, but couldn’t bring myself to use it.
“Hardly surprising,” Vini murmured through a yawn. “She works there.”
“Right but . . . something didn’t seem right.”
Vini’s voice perked up. “Oh? What do you mean?”
Seconds after I explained the panic attack, the tears in her eyes, the desperate way she scrabbled herself back together, and then asked me not to tell Vini about it, the call ended. Blinking, I stared at the dark screen of my phone.
“Vini?”
Attempts to call her back were fruitless. The most logical scenario would likely mean we’d been disconnected, but I had a feeling that wasn’t it. No, Vini had hung up on me. If I called Katelyn right now, it would go to voicemail.
I chewed on my bottom lip, then sat on my couch and leaned back. Nothing to do but let this play out. Whatever haunted Katelyn at work the other day now had Vini on its trail. I tilted my head back and settled in to wait.
Three minutes later, my phone buzzed. Vinita’s name flashed across the screen as I answered.
“So?”
