She turns, thrusting the note and the phone at me, staring almost defiantly, her eyes wet.
“Never call Fuchsia from a traceable number. As soon as you’ve got what you want, you burn that Post-it, you hear?”
“Absolutely. I will.” I nod quickly, my breaths coming wet and painful, and pull her into a tight hug, clutching the phone and crumpled bit of paper against my palm the entire time. “I’m sorry, Ember. I hate this.”
I hate that it feels like goodbye.
She goes stiff, then grabs me just as tight, hugging me like she knows.
I don’t give her the chance to ask again, to say anything.
I just pull away, offering her a rueful smile.
“C’mon. I’ll drop you at home.”
We close everything up and file out to my station wagon.
As I pull out onto the road, I do one last selfish thing.
I don’t know if I’ll have the courage to call Fuchsia on my own, so with Ember there in the car with me and one eye on the road, I punch the number on the Post-it in with my thumb and lift the burner phone to my ear.
I’m almost not expecting an answer, as late as it is, but I remember Holt said something about her being holed up under a new identity, living off the grid.
I don’t know much about this strange woman, but if she’s done the kinds of things where you need a fake ID to retire...she’s probably pretty dangerous.
It makes me feel a little better to have a scary person on my side, for once.
But I jump a little when the line picks up with a sharp click, a little static, and then a voice like razors and silk.
“This is either someone with a death wish, or someone looking to buy a death wish. Choose wisely and identify yourself.”
“Um.” My tongue knots for a second. “My name’s Felicity Randall and I’m looking for a Fuch—”
“Shhh. Don’t. If you say that name out loud again, I will hang up right now and you’ll be left on your own, coffee girl,” that voice says crisply, irritably. “I know who you are. Your rather oversized paramour explained everything quite thoroughly. I assume you’re calling for the results of my hard work.”
I fight a blush and fail.
No point in protesting about Alaska anymore when we’ve been playing the part so well—even if I think it’s over now, one way or the other.
Even if I survive, even if I don’t wind up disabled or in prison, I can’t imagine him wanting anything to do with me.
“Yeah,” I say faintly. “And it’s kinda critical.”
“If you must know,” she informs me, talking to me like I’m a misbehaving schoolgirl, “I’ve managed to gain access to the phone of none other than one Paisley Lockwood of Vancouver, and really, that girl gets around. Her GPS signal jumps all over the map, but her primary residence is a luxury home on the outskirts of the city. She’s been quite deep in shady transactions, too.” Fuchsia clucks her tongue disapprovingly. “Like a rather well-known member of Canadian Parliament who keeps her supplied with a private jet in exchange for a not insignificant sum of cocaine. Now.” Her voice turns smug, baiting. “Ask me where she’s flying tomorrow.”
I glance at Ember, tense and watchful in the passenger seat, and sigh.
“I’ll bite. Where?”
“Spokane. And then she’s chartered a private plane. The type a person flies out to Podunk towns with a single nearly defunct airstrip installed just on the outskirts.”
The only reason I don’t close my eyes against the feeling bottoming out my entire chest is because I’m driving.
She’s coming here.
Probably to hold those kids for ransom, and demand everything she can out of me, including my neck laid bare for her latest toy.
Before I can say anything else, though, Fuchsia continues. “You’re lucky I found it when I did, earlier tonight. I tried to tell Leo and Gray, but neither of them were answering their phones. Don’t they know it’s rude to keep a lady waiting?”
“They’re...a little busy,” I croak. “Trying to find Alaska’s missing son, and Ward’s missing niece.”
There’s a long pause.
When she speaks again, that mocking tone fades from Fuchsia’s voice, suddenly much more somber. “Well, that puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it? And you believe this is related to your Miss Lockwood?”
“I’m sure of it,” I rasp.
“Then I can only wish you the best of luck. Do you need her contact? I have it. As well as access to extensive psychological records. She’s been in therapy with very unconventional psychiatrists for a while—and it sounds like Little Miss Dollface is off her antipsychotics.”
I could’ve told her that.
Off her antipsychotics is basically the sum total of Paisley’s existence.
“I’m good,” I say. “We’re regular texting buddies, you know. Loves to send me photos with my mom.”
“Miss Randall?”
“Yeah?”
“You have pressing issues to handle,” Fuchsia says coolly. “So why are we still talking?”
I almost smile.
I can take a hint.
“Thanks for your help, ma’am,” I reply, careful not to use her name.
She scoffs loudly.
“I’ll be a ma’am when I’m dead. Do tell the boys bye for me.”
Then, before I can get another word in, the phone goes dead in my hand.
I drop it in the cupholder and take the turn toward Ember and Doc’s house. But Ember’s been watching me this whole time, her stare practically boring through the side of my head, and now she makes a huffy sound.
“Turn the car around,” she snaps. “I’m not letting you do this alone. Wherever we’re going, whoever this doll-person is, take me with you.”
“Not happening,” I say firmly as I white-knuckle the wheel, refusing to point the car anywhere except onto the next side street in their quiet neighborhood. “What are you going to do? Trip someone because you’re so short they miss you—ow!”
Bad joke. I deserved that.
For such a tiny woman, that little jab from her fist hurts, throbbing against my upper arm. But she’s not angry.
She’s upset, hurt, tears bristling in her voice.
“You can’t tell me you aren’t about to get hurt,” she bites off. “How am I supposed to just let you go?”
“By remembering that you have a family to come home to, and you already had your little brush with doom,” I remind her—just as I pull up outside that home, my headlights spilling over their cozy house and the toys in the yard.
And the silhouette of the man pacing in the front window, dark against the glow of the living room lights. Doc’s familiar muscular shape pauses now and then to look through the filmy curtains.
“Look at him,” I say softly. “You really want to make him worry?”
“Like it’s okay for you to make me worry?”
“Honestly, I think you’re the only one who’d miss me,” I choke out, throat suddenly tight, before I swallow and force a smile. “Worst thing that happens is, I’ll go to jail, and then you can come bail me out and tell me what a big idiot I am. I need you to go home now. I need to not worry about you, Ember.”