Page 90 of Wildflower and Whiskey
“Can’t,” I said. “If I sit, I’ll think about what could’ve happened if you’d opened that box with. . .”
“Phoenix,” she said my name with reverence that felt too damn good. She crossed to me and set her palms at my jaw, forcing me to look in her eyes, which wasn’t a bad thing. I mean they did suck me under today, they were gray with a ring of blue around them. “I didn’t open it. I called you and you came right away. Braden and I are okay.”
Her words settled the storm inside me.They were okay.I nodded once. “Yeah.”
“Now sit,” she repeated, and the corner of her mouth tilted. “Please.”
I sat. She climbed into my lap like we’d been doing that in this chair for years, a soft, slow weight, tucked under my chin. I wrapped my arms around her and stared at the window and told every shadow it would have to come through me.
We stayed like that until the room blurred at the edges and came back sharp with a buzz. My phone lit with a number I didn’t recognize. I almost let it go to voicemail. Then I didn’t.
“Thorne,” I said.
A whisper came over the line. “Phoenix?”
I shot upright. Elyna felt it in my body and sat up too. “Harmony?”
“Yeah.” The whisper broke on the edges and steadied again like someone in a car trying not to hit a curb. “You’re on speaker, but I’m alone. I’m driving.” She sounded terrified. I hadn’t heard from Harmony since high school. We had never been friends butthe short amount of time she was with Eric meant I got to know her a bit.
“Where are you?” I asked, already pulling up the map tool in my head the way Becket did, measuring distance to the nearest exit ramp.
“Halfway between… I don’t know. Signs for Hawkesbury were behind me awhile back. I turned off because a black sedan tailed me for three exits. I think I shook them. I wanted to call Becket but I didn’t have his number.” Her voice was shaky.
Elyna slid her hand into mine and squeezed. “Harmony, it’s Elyna. Are you okay?”
“Define okay.” A small, wet nothing that might’ve been a laugh. “They were in my building tonight. Two of them. They had the super open a maintenance closet because they said there was a leak. There was no leak. They asked for my apartment number. He didn’t give it. He called me. I went down the back stairs and got in my car. I’ve been driving since.”
My teeth went tight enough to hurt. “You did good,” I said. “Stay on the phone. I’m looping Becket in.”
I merged the calls. Becket answered with “Yeah,” and Harmony inhaled like a startled bird.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Becket, you remember Harmony.”
“Hi,” she said, voice a thread.
“It’s been a long time,” Becket returned, softer than he was with most. Becket knew she had been in touch with Elyna. He knew the same people who were tailing her were the ones stirring trouble in Val-Du-Lys. I told him she had left Montreal and had men following her.
“Tell me what you’re seeing.” He went straight into police mode.
“Dark. Road. A truck two cars back. No headlights directly behind me,” she rattled. “I’m heading toward you. I thought about going to my dad’s or Nico’s but…”
“Don’t,” I said at the same time Becket did. “Stay on high roads. Stay lit. We’ll have eyes at the service line.”
“Okay.” A small sniff. “Phoenix?”
“I’m here.”
“If I’m overreacting. . .”
“You’re not, Harmony,” I said.
Silence held a second. “My father hasn’t answered my calls. I mean, we haven’t really been in touch over the years, but I know if I would try to call him he’d answer. He doesn’t have redeemable qualities. I’m not making excuses, but he hasn’t picked up my calls. Nico came by the shop I’m working at while I was closing tonight and said, ‘He’s lying low.’ My father doesn’t lie low. He schedules the weather.”
If Nico was in Montreal, then things were serious. Marcel probably sent him to keep an eye on his daughter.
Becket’s voice went flatter. “We’ll find him. But your job is to get here without stopping.”
“Right.” She drew a breath, then another. “Tell Eric I . . .” She stopped. “No. Don’t tell Eric anything. Not yet.”
