Not a fucking chance.
“Freddie,” Rome said and I twisted. Where the fuck had he come from? I scanned the street and then looked back at him. “I have an idea.”
“Will it get Boo-Boo back?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m in.” Because anything was better than this.
He nodded. “We need to leave as soon as they’re done.”
Right. We couldn’t leave them unprotected. “What do you need me to bring?”
“Just you, right now.” Rome paused, the silence lasting almost too long. “Don’t stab anyone.”
“Now? Or later?”
“Both.” With another nod, he walked away as silently as he’d approached.
“No promises,” I said when he was a few feet away. I wanted to stab a lot of people. Starting with whoever convinced Boo-Boo to leave us.
When I found that person—all bets were off.
“Woah,” I said, holding up both hands as I glanced from one twin to the other. “You’ve had this information for how fucking long and haven’t said a word?”
“Milo doesn’t want to hear it yet.” Rome shrugged. “Jasper and Vaughn will not react well.”
Liam gave his brother a look that said he didn’t think Rome was acting well. Fuck them both.
“A week. You’ve done what with it?”
“I’ve been using connections to reach out to the family,” Liam said. “One of the reasons Milo likes me in this world…”
“Yeah, yeah, cause you travel in the same snooty circles, only she didn’t.”
The bastard had the grace to at least grimace. “No. But I know people who know her.”
“I know people who know her.” Agitation invaded my system like a hive of bees had been kicked over. The stinging sensation kept me moving. “We know her. What good are these people of yours?”
“Not much,” Liam admitted, his expression shuttering.
“Not much? Or nothing?” I rubbed at my chest, then the back of my neck. I wasn’t quite to the point where I was going to start yanking on my hair. But I needed a fix bad—either information or—no, no or. I had to keep my fucking head on, because these guys were all chasing their own damn tails.
“Not much.” Rome held out a phone to me.
“That’s Boo-Boo’s.”
“We know.” Liam cut his brother a look, but I ignored them both as I unlocked the screen. The passcode was off of it. “That’s the ‘not much’ part.”
“No incoming calls that aren’t us.” I panned through the apps they had open, trying and failing to stand still so I just went back to pacing. They said nothing, but did that whacked out thing where they barely looked at each other and then read the other’s mind. It was both cool and creepy.
Also, a real bitch when we played cards—or any game really.
Ignoring them, I went to the ChatApp and popped it open. There was a message there.
Lainey: Call me. I saw the news.
“Who’s Lainey?”
“We don’t know,” Liam said. “The name—it could be anybody.”
“Or it could be a friend of hers.” Maybe one from before. “Have you reached out to her?”
Rome glared at his brother and Liam sighed. “No,” he answered before Rome could. “She was hiding this. I restored the app and the message came through. We turned off her security protocols, so it didn’t just erase it.”
Each word came out as though he had to chew glass to get them past his teeth. Rome’s expression shifted. “I said we should message her back.”
“It’s a bad idea,” Liam said. “We don’t know who she is, and we have no way to check her out beforehand. It’s a name.”
“And a number.” I clicked on the information banner next to her name.
“Yeah, it’s another dead end,” Liam said with a grimace. “I ran it. It’s attached to a burner account for a shell that’s part of a subsidiary of an LLC that was just picked up by a corporation. There’s no way to track that back to that person just as there is no way to track Hellspawn’s phone back to her.”
“Except Vaughn just got her phone from one of our stash.” Most of which we had because Liam set them up through some network of companies and other crap. I didn’t pay attention to that part because I didn’t care. “So, Boo-Boo added this number from memory.”
“What…?”
“She had to add this number from memory, she didn’t have her phone. Kel or Jasper still had it.” I turned the phone over in my hand like it would offer me some insight. “She left this one. What about the other phone?”
Rome shook his head. “It’s not here.”
“So, she took the phone she had from before, but not this one. Why? Why leave one and take the other?”
“This one has our contact info in it.” Liam said.
“She could have added it to her other phone before she left.” I sliced a hand through the air, my thoughts buzzing almost as much as my skin. “She was in touch with this person.” For how long? And she told none of us? Then again, why would she tell us this? It was a tie to her old life.
Or was it?
Unlocking the phone, I went back to the message. The other person had to know it had been read but they’d sent nothing else. They saw the news, which meant they knew Boo-Boo had gone home. My thoughts were like a hurricane, the volume too loud for me to catch more than snippets. But she hadn’t sent any other messages.
Had she already seen her? Did she know she didn’t have this phone?
Well, she might have guessed.
Fingers flying, I typed in a message and hit send just as Liam snarled, “Don’t.”
But it was too late, the message was already on the screen.
“Goddammit, Freddie.” He scowled but Rome moved to stand at my shoulder and read the message.
Emersyn: This isn’t her. She left her phone. Can you help us help her?
“She could throw her phone away now,” Rome said.
“She could,” I agreed. “Absolutely. But if she’s the kind of friend you memorize their number, then you keep all your contact secret and use programs that erase the messages? Then she’s the kind of friend you can trust—at least for Boo-Boo.”
Rome nodded, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the screen once. We stood there, like a bunch of boobs, staring at the phone like it held every answer. An hour passed before Liam moved to the kitchen and started cooking. A second hour and we were at the table, the phone plugged into a charging cord and the screen left on so we could see the message. It would also show that “Emersyn” was online.
I didn’t care.
This was the first tangible fucking connection I’d had in days. The closest I’d been able to get to her. Even the news hadn’t reported on her, not one word. They replayed the story of her getting off the plane over and over again. Apparently, that was what had happened to Liam’s television. Rome smashed it when the news hadn’t given them an updated report.
Liam just hadn’t replaced it.
It was dark when a flash on the screen jerked me out of a half-doze. Rome sat forward as I did, and Liam jerked.