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I sink my teeth into my bottom lip and spin the glass around on the top of my thigh. “Well, he started acting cagey when I told him my name, then he wouldn’t let me pay for my drink, and said ‘please don’t tell him’ and something about ‘he’s gonna kill me.’ And I guess I assumed it was from you. Like he was worried you were gonna get mad or something?” My gaze ping-pongs between his eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Nah, sugar,” he says, his fingers gently massaging my scalp again. “Just thinking.”
Quiet settles around us, but it’s heavy with anxiety, at least from my end. I think back, trying to remember anything else the barista said, or anything else that seemed weird.
“You sleep okay?” he asks, pulling me from my spiral.
I nod with my lips around the straw, enjoying the way the spiced chai melts on my tongue with the perfect consistency. “Yeah. I’m a little off, and I felt like I could keep sleeping, but I’m tired of being in bed. Besides, it’s lonely in there alone.” I send him a sly look, hiding my smirk.
“C’mon, sugar, we both know you weren’t alone last night.”
I tsk. “That was two nights ago. Last night, I was alone. I really thought you were going to come and join me.” I’m teasing him. I’m perfectly capable of spending my nights alone, even if I do prefer to be sleeping with one of them. I can’t get over how warm they are, how good it feels to snuggle something. Or not snuggle, in some cases I think with a proverbial brow waggle.
His fingers flex against the sides of my neck, a wordless request for my attention. “I’m sorry, sugar. I was trying to give you space, especially after Nova basically super glued himself to your side the first day you got back.”
My mouth curls into a small grin and I look at him. “I’m not mad, Lincoln. Just giving you a hard time.”
He nods, his expression pensive. “It’s okay to not be okay, you know. You’re safe here, with me. With all of us. To feel whatever you’re feeling.”
My smile slips free. “I know, and I appreciate that. But I . . .” I trail off as I try to find the right words. “I don’t know. I’m not going to dwell on it. I just want to move on. I want to find that asshole who took me, and then I want you guys to do whatever you have to do to get Hunter home. And then I want to move on.”
“We’re trying, Evangeline. You have no idea how much we want all of that too. But that guy’s a fucking ghost. We don’t have any footage of him entering the compound, and Dixie didn’t see anyone on her way out through the backend of the property. So it’s taking longer than I’d hoped.”
I shake my head, sinking my teeth into the soft fleshy part of my cheek. “It’s too bad I didn’t steal his driver’s license when I left him in that ditch.”
He chuckles. “I doubt he had any kind of identification on him, sugar. If he was smart enough to evade all kinds of security and traffic cams, then he would’ve known better. But it’s a good thought. You sure there’s nothing distinguishable about him?”
My face scrunches up as I try to remember the emblem on the back of his jacket. “There was something, some kind of logo or artwork on the back of his jacket. But it was faded, like it was worn and aged. Not one of those artfully distressed jackets they sell for hundreds of dollars.”
He shifts to attention next to me. “Describe it. Colors, shapes, anything you can think of.”
I close my eyes and try to picture it. I do my best to block everything else out, not letting myself get swept into the anxiety thinking about that day brings. “I think it was kind of a circle shape, maybe oval. And the design was kind of light, like a yellow or gray maybe. It was too dark to make out much else.”
His thumb sweeps over my pulse in my neck. “That’s good, sugar, real good.”
“Yeah?” I ask, a hopeful smile ticking up the side of my mouth.
He pulls out his phone with his free hand, his fingers flying over the screen. “Just adding a few things to my search parameters.” He clears his throat and slips his phone back into his pocket. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
Alarm races up my back. “Okay.”
“It’s about your sister.”
I swallow hard, my heart thumping inside my chest. My feelings about my sister are complicated on the best of days. She’s a sibling in name only, but the idea of her—of what she could’ve been—is what eats away at me sometimes.
“What about her?”
He hesitates a moment, his gaze locked on mine. “She called me. The day they came to the compound.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “What? Why?”
He drags his hand along his jaw. “Shit, sugar, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
I swipe my tongue across my bottom lip, my skin starting to feel prickly with awareness. “Just tell me. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”
He nods, his lips pursed as he looks at me. “She was involved in the robbery. And maybe the compound thing, at least indirectly.”
Shock reaches down my throat and yanks all the air out of my lungs.
