"When my brother gets here, you're going to tell him the same name you just told me. And then you're going to tell him everything else. Who hired you, why they're following me, and what they want. If you do that, you might leave Arizona with most of your teeth. If you don't?—"
I pick up his knife from the asphalt and turn it in my hand.
"Well. You've seen what I do when I'm in a bad mood. Imagine what my brother's like. He’s a hell of a lot worse than I am."
I stand. Lean against the wall and check my phone again.
The missed call stares back at me. Unknown number. That area code is nagging at me. Something familiar I can't place.
I should call it back.
I don't. Not right now. They ain’t called again. They haven’t left a message.
Colten's truck appears at the mouth of the alley eight minutes later. He gets out, takes one look at the man on the ground, then at my hands, then at my face.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
He doesn't ask anything else. He grabs the man by the ankles and drags him to the truck bed. Tosses a tarp over him. Closes the tailgate.
"Romeo came back on the sedan plates," he says, leaning against the truck. "Registered to a rental company in Los Angeles."
LA. My stomach drops.
"Who rented it?"
"Shell company. Romeo's still digging. But it's connected to a real estate firm."
Real estate. LA. Shell companies. The pieces are floating in front of me, but I can't make them fit. Not yet.
I pick up Violet's garment bag from the crate, brush off the dust, and check it for blood.
Clean. She'll never know. One day, when she’s less stressed, I might tell her what happened with this dress.
“I’ll meet you at the barn,” I tell Colt as he hops in his truck.
He nods and drives off, and I walk back onto the street as if nothing happened. Just a cowboy carrying a dress for his pregnant friend.
I climb in my truck and sit for a minute. Staring at the cracked phone screen. At the missed call.
Something's wrong. Not just the knife. Not just the cars. Something bigger. I look at the unknown number one more time.
Then I toss the phone on the dash, start the engine, and drive back to the ranch.
Whatever's coming, it's coming fast.
And I've got a feeling I'm not going to see it until it's already here.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Harper
Song- Drag Path, Twenty One Pilots
He didn't answer my call.
It took me two hours of pacing my room to work up the courage. Two hours of practicing what to say, rehearsing the words in the mirror.
