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“But I am,” he says. “It’s exactly the right place to have that conversation. It’s exactly where you belong. With me. You belong with me now, Harper.”
He says that now, but what if he changes his mind when we really talk about what I left on his voicemail? What if he hasn’t even heard it? What if he hates me when he hears all the details?
“I can’t get on that plane with you.”
Chapter forty-five
Harper
Eric and I are still huddled together, that talk we’re going to have in the air between us, when the SUV stops without warning. “What’s happening?” I ask, jerking out of Eric’s embrace, the reality of being trapped in a warehouse and on the run, now coming back to me with a jolting force.
“This is it,” Adam calls out from the front seat, placing us in park. “Private airport and private plane.”
Eric squeezes my hand. “We’re all good, princess. I promise. All is as it’s supposed to be.”
“Did you—have you listened to your voicemail?”
“I did, about ten times.” He kisses my hand. “We’re okay.”
He only allows me a fleeting moment to absorb that information and feel relief before he says, “Now we get the hell out of here.” He leans forward to speak to Adam in a low, muffled voice that I don’t try to understand.
Instead, I eye a runway with the plane waiting on us.
The plane that will take me away. Takeusaway.
The plane that will leave my mother behind.
Do I really dare to leave her behind?
Could I even get her to leave with me if I tried? No, the real question is: could I ever get her to leave withusif I tried? That’s the key here. She’s definitely not going to agree to go anywhere with Eric and who am I kidding? She won’t leave my stepfather.
I have to leave her here. I have no choice.
Adam opens his door and gets out of the vehicle as Eric settles back into the seat with me. “Adam’s going to clear the plane.”
“Clear the plane?” I ask incredulously.” Surely you don’t think someone is waiting on us here.”
His hand comes down on my leg and he squeezes. “Relax, sweetheart. He’s doing his job and doing it well by being paranoid.The safest place we can be right now is on that plane, in the air. And this was our plan anyway. We were going to give them space. Get away. Make the family feel safe. They’ll let their guard down. The Walker team is watching.”
He’s right. I know he’s right and I can’t let my mother’s decisions make me a fool, any more than I can my miscarriage and where our talk will lead us. Yes, we’ll be trapped on that plane in our own swampland of pain and history, but we’ll both be alive.
“Harper.”
At Eric’s softly spoken prod I shake myself and refocus on him. “Yes?”
“I promise you, your mother is safe. If there’s a shift in where she settles in all of this, Adam will be here to get her out.” And then as if he’s reiterating my earlier thoughts, he adds, “She wouldn’t leave if we asked. You know that.”
“Maybe if she hears what happened tonight, that’ll change.”
His hands come down on my arms, those blue eyes of his connecting with mine. “You can’t tell her. You don’t know how she’ll react or what danger she’ll put herself in. We need to stick to the plan. Let them get comfortable. Let them lead Walker Security to whatever is going on here. All that’s happening right now, is that we’re making sure whoever thinks we’re a problem, thinks we’re not anymore.”
“You mean whoever thinksI’ma problem.”
“We’re one, baby. They know that. I came here for you.”
But we’re not one or he wouldn’t have left.Only he didn’t leave, I remind myself. “You really think this is all Isaac?”
“He’s involved, but he’s not the mastermind.”
