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“That’s a long trip.”
“Only if you don’t go first class.” He looked at Ned, his smile falling. “What you don’t understand is that I’m not letting Iris out of my sight until she’s safe.”
Ned smiled. “So that’s a yes, then?”
Yes? To what?
Hud frowned at him, but they had pulled up to the hospital. Hud got out, left Ned behind, and stalked inside. He still had his badge, which he now pulled out and slipped over his neck. Buzzed the door open.
Darkness filled the lobby, now shadowed and empty. He didn’t stop at the reception desk but strode down the hall to the ER room.
Slowed. The room was dark, the bed empty.
He returned to the desk. Ned was just walking in.
“The woman in the room down the hall—Iris Marshall. Did she get admitted?”
The male nurse had stood up when he approached the counter, and now shook his head. “She was never admitted. She left over an hour ago with her friend.”
Ned shook his head, slammed his fist on the counter, and turned away.
“Any idea where they went?”
“Just that they left with some guy. Sorry.”
Some guy.
Hud looked at Ned, whose mouth tightened.
“Do you have security footage?” Ned said, turning back to the nurse.
He nodded and reached for the phone. “Why?”
“Because,” Hud said slowly, “I think they might be in trouble.”
* * *
“He’s going to kill me.”Shae sat at the long dining table in the Airbnb, her arms folded, her head in her arms. “Ned is going to kill me.”
“What?” Iris said. “Won’t they just come back to the house?” She lay on the sofa, a cold pack on her neck where it had started to ache. They’d given her enough drugs to flatten an elephant, but frankly, she refused to sleep until Hud returned.
Alive, without blood and without the law on his tail. Because no, she didn’t worry as much about him as her brother.
Who tended to dive into trouble without looking back.
“You don’t understand. We have a history. It includes me disappearing and him having to find me.” Shae got up and walked to an arched bay window with a seat.
“Well, this time you’re sitting in an Airbnb in the country, south of Berlin, waiting for Zach to make you avocado toast.”
“I’m not sure I’m doing it right, but it’s almost ready.” Zach spoke up from the kitchen, attached to the main room through a glass barn door. The three-bedroom house sported an updated seventies vibe, with hardwood floors, gold and navy blue dining furniture against an oval walnut table, a green L-shaped sofa, a gold petal hanging light, and a standing stove that pumped out heat.
“Yes,” Shae said, in response to Iris’s comment. “Which is a thousand times better than a Siberian gulag, but still, poor Ned.”
“Seriously, gulag? You keep saying that—are you serious?”
“Da. As in I ate black bread and drank watered down tea for two weeks, digging a ditch on a work crew until Ned and Fraser rescued me.”
“How did you even…how are you not crumpled in a ball right now?”
