She made a face. “Jerk.” Then shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I never get to see my best friend.” Then she turned.
“Two.”
“You really are period cramps,” she snapped.
The asshole looked right at her, pulled out some bills from his wallet and tossed it at me. They fluttered into the wind and scattered around us. “For your trouble,” he said, then looked at Lainey. “Now. Go.”
She went and he grabbed his friend, hauled him to his feet, and said, “Don’t ever let me see you again, Mister.”
I chuckled. “Or what?”
He stared at me.
“And keep your money, dick. I’m not for sale.”
With that, I walked away from them, awareness of them keeping me on alert. I made it back into a side door of the lobby, avoiding the main portion. Last thing I needed was cops coming after me. I made it back to my room, pausing only long enough to hear Lainey’s laughter in there along with Ivy’s, before I let myself in the room.
Fuck, my bruises had bruises. I stopped dead when I found Sarah Jane lying on my bed.
“Oh my god, are you all right?” She sat up, concern all over her face.
“Getting better,” I told her and threw the security lock on the door.
CHAPTER 12
ROME
Freddie was quiet after finally having fallen asleep. The drive had taken us almost a day and a half with no stops except for gas and to pee. The music was off. Time wasn’t the issue unless we missed her. She’d set a place and a time to meet. We were there.
The phone, we’d kept on the charger. She’d sent no more messages. The only question was whether she would show up. Freddie had checked the phone repeatedly, as though it would alter in the scant few seconds he would put it down. Rather than park in the lot of the little apartment complex, I’d picked a spot that overlooked it.
We needed to see what was coming for us. All we had was a name on the phone. The name didn’t mean much, except she was important to Emersyn.
“It could be a trap,” Freddie said in a muffled voice, before he began to unfold in the passenger seat. He popped his fingers as he stretched, then rolled his head from side to side until the vertebrae cracked there too.
“Maybe.”
“You already thought about that?” He let out a noisy yawn before he grabbed the half-drunk soda from the cup holder. The lid popping off released a hiss of fizz.
I nodded, but kept my gaze pinned to the area below. I’d expected something bigger, more prestigious. This apartment complex was neither. It wasn’t low-rent, but it wasn’t wealthy either. The choice seemed questionable at best.
“Did you think she might just be shining us on?”
I shrugged.
“Yeah, me too.” He pushed open the car door. “I’m gonna take a leak. Be right back.”
I’d nod but he hadn’t waited for my response. The door closed behind him and I kept a firm gaze below. Five minutes later, when Freddie sauntered across the parking lot raking a hand through his hair. He shot me a grin and a thumbs up before he tucked his sunglasses on and moved to lean against a light pole.
Bait.
Leaning back in the seat, I waited.
Almost forty-five minutes later, a car pulled into the lot from the street. It was the first movement that didn’t involve someone leaving their apartment and getting into a parked car before they drove away. The way Freddie leaned, he could be asleep, but I doubted it.
I tracked the low-slung black sports car. It was far too expensive for this neighborhood. A dark-haired woman was behind the wheel, barely visible behind the tinted glass. For a moment, my heart jerked.
Starling.
But no—the facial shape was wrong. If I hadn’t already decided on that, I would have when she pulled into a spot just three down from where Freddie stood. The blunt cut of her hair wasn’t hidden by the sunglasses. It was too short. She could have cut it, I supposed. Starling wouldn’t be hesitating inside the car.
The frozen tableau seemed to hold all of us captive for far too long. I reached for the keys just as Freddie pushed away from the lamp pole. The girl inside the car seemed to come to the same decision.
The girl.
Lainey opened the door and stepped out into the sunshine. The blunt cut seemed sharper, when combined with her dark blue leather jacket, over unrelieved black jeans, ending in a pair of calf length leather boots in the same rich blue. Wealth shimmered over her like a second skin. Too far away to hear anything, I shoved my way out of the car and descended the hill.
She was alone.
That was why she’d lingered in the vehicle. Either to prove something to us or to herself.
“You’re friends of Emersyn?” Her voice held a hint of an accent.
“We are,” I answered before Freddie did. He still seemed puzzled by her for some reason. “You came.”
“I told you I would,” she said, shooting me a frowning look. “I wasn’t aware there would be two of you.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“True.” She shifted her weight, then folded her arms. “Can you prove you have Emersyn’s best interests at heart?”
“No.” My answer seemed to galvanize Freddie from whatever lost place he’d gone.
“Rome, yes we fucking can.” He narrowed the gap between us. I hadn’t gone to stand too close, because while Lainey was taller than Starling, she didn’t seem to have her muscle tone and she was shorter than us.
Lainey lifted a manicured hand to her sunglasses. They were a ruby red color with a hint of gold glitter on them. “How?”
She asked the one question I had, and Freddie dug his phone out of his pocket, then played a message I’d never heard before.
It was Emersyn.
The sound of her voice was startlingly clear. The ache in my chest at hearing it gouged out where my ribs should be. The hollowing effect hurt. She was talking—no, she was reading. Lainey took a step toward Freddie, her gaze fixed on the phone. The distraction gave me time to catch my breath and I had to look away from both of them.
Instead, I scanned the area. The echo of laughter underscoring her words as she described the scene she was reading, poured stinging soap onto the deep wounds. It seemed forever since I’d heard her voice. She’d never left me messages. Not like that.
When she came back, I’d ask for some.
“She’s never mentioned you,” Lainey said finally when the message ended and I could breathe again.
“She never told us about you,” Freddie answered in an empty tone. “She didn’t tell us a lot, but she called me and said she had to go home. That her mother was sick and her father had a heart attack.”
“What?”
The sharpness in that syllable pulled my head around.
“Her father might have had a heart attack, but they aren’t advertising it. Then again, they wouldn’t.” Impatience crept into her voice. “And her mother isn’t sick, she’s just…”
“She’s just what?” Freddie demanded. He’d shoved his phone away, but he hovered closer like he could get her answers faster.
“It doesn’t matter, she’s not sick.”
“It might.”