“No. I don’t want them involved. The last thing Lily needs to be doing is helping us hunt a killer.” She tapped on the screen, dialing quickly.
“Put it on speaker,” he urged. He didn’t want to miss a thing. When it came to Sloane, I need to know everything from here on out.
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. He thought the call was going to voicemail.
“Who the hell is this?” A disgruntled, female voice. “And how did you get this number?”
“It’s me, Josie. It’s Sloane.”
“Sloane.” Shock. Relief. “I heard what happened—talk about worst nightmare situation. I would have lost my ever-loving mind if I’d been buried in a coffin.” Horror echoed in the words. “Were you seriously trapped with Preston Byron? You have got to tell me, was he everything that you thought he would be?”
Well, that was…interesting. Just what had Sloane imagined him to be?
Sloane cleared her throat. “I’m calling you on his phone.”
“Oh. I…it just said Private Number.”
“He’s also sitting right beside me.”
“Oh. So, then I just made things super awkward for you, didn’t I?”
“Slightly.”
“I’m really glad you’re alive, Sloane.”
“Me, too, Josie. Me, too. But, um, I need your help, okay?”
“Always. You saved my life, Sloane. You know I’ll pay you back in blood.”
He wanted this story. But Sloane was hunching her shoulders as she gripped the phone. “Can you track my bracelet? The one Lily gave to me?”
“Uh, sure. But aren’t Atlas and Lily there with you? Atlas could probably give you this info in two seconds…”
He heard tapping in the background. Like finger strokes on a keyboard.
“Whereas it will take me a whole…three seconds. Done. Got it.”
“Is it at the Jackson County sheriff’s station?”
“Uh, no. It’s not. It’s actually closer to you than the sheriff’s station.”
Sloane’s gaze shot over toward Preston. The rain kept pelting their vehicle.
“How do you know where she is?” Preston asked.
Silence. Then, “Hi, there,” the woman called Josie greeted him. “You crawled out of a coffin twice, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Bet you really hate tight spaces, don’t you?”
The back of the Range Rover was tight. Did he hate it? Yes. But he had to be in a car so he had to deal with that shit. At least there were plenty of windows in the vehicle. He usually preferred a large, stretching limo when he had to travel by car. But the limo just didn’t work as well when driving through the mountains as the Range Rover did. “They aren’t my favorite,” he finally said.
“I can understand that.” Soft. “We all have our demons, don’t we?”
Some had more demons than others.
“I know where Sloane is because Atlas already has her in the system with the new tracker. All hooked up with the lily charm necklace. I can see her moving right now, heading down…” She rattled off the mountain road that they were on.
