Page 91 of Wildflower and Whiskey
“I won’t,” I said. I felt Elyna’s eyes on me. She knew as well as I did that Eric and Harmony had a complicated past.
“I’ll call when I hit the Val-Du-Lys sign,” Harmony said. “That’s if I make it that far.”
“Stay with us,” Becket said. “I’m sending a patrol to meet you two kilometers before the line. Don’t stop for anything but them.”
“Got it.” The line clicked, but the connection stayed open.
I didn’t realize I’d started pacing again until Elyna’s hand caught mine and made me still. “She’s coming here,” Elyna said, not a question.
“Yeah.” I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “And if they’re as smart as I think they are, they’ll try to use her to squeeze her father.”
“And us?”
“And us,” I said. “If they think we’re the leverage between Riley and the town’s money.”
Dusk settled and the orchard turned black at the edges. My phone buzzed with a message from Dad.
Dad:Patrol on the far gate. I’m nearby.
I stepped onto the porch to scan the lane. The cold bit like a clean knife. I could see the service road through the bare-limbed maples one curve, then the next, then the straight shot down to town. A distant cruiser’s lights cast a red-blue heartbeat across the trunks, then cut out. Becket liked to keep things dark until he didn’t.
Headlights crested the far bend. One pair, moving too slow. They rolled three car lengths up the lane, then killed the engine. I lifted the radio Dad had shoved into my hand at lunch.
“Becket,” I said, keeping my voice low so it didn’t carry into the house. “We’ve got movement halfway up the lane. Vehicle cut its lights. I can’t see plates.”
“Copy,” he replied. I could hear the cruiser engine through the thin speaker. “Harmony’s ten minutes out. Patrol at the city limits just called. Stay put.”
I didn’t move. I listened.
The night on the Maple Valley property had a familiar ring to it, owls, coyotes, the cold rip of wind through the orchard rows. I’d been listening to it since I was a kid. But tonight, there were new sounds, the crunch of gravel under boots. Slow. Deliberate.
“Phoenix?” Elyna’s voice floated toward me softly.
“Stay with him,” I murmured back, not taking my eyes off the dark. “Don’t move.”
Somewhere down the lane, a second engine turned over and then stilled.
I’d turned off all the lights remembering Dad’s advice about the dark buying you time. I held on to the cold metal of theflashlight, keeping it off, so it was easier to see the shadows lurking in the dark of night. I breathed once, twice, until the sound of my own heart quit drowning the night.
The boots stopped.
The silence expanded thick and heavy, just like the second before thunder roared and lightning struck.
I kept my cool and waited for the thing in the dark to learn the first and last rule of this place, you don’t take one step farther toward my family and keep your name.
CHAPTER 38
Elyna
The sound woke me before the cold did. A door. Not slammed, just open long enough for the air to shift. I sat up fast, my hair falling in my face, the faint blue glow from the baby monitor flickering on the nightstand. The static was there soft and even. But the screen was blank. No crib. No shape.
“Phoenix?” My voice came out small.
No answer.
The clock on the dresser read 3:42 a.m.. The floor was cool under my feet as I crossed the hall, heart already pounding. Braden’s door was half-open. I pushed it wider.
The crib was empty.
