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“Holy shit. Fine,” she said. “Then can you have him call me?”
“I can ask him to, but no promises.” She heard him sigh. “You know it might be better if you just let this one go. Know what I mean?”
She really didn’t. Did Roberts mean to let go of Elias or Eden? “I’m just trying to find my friend. That’s it.”
“Are you sure she’s even missing? Maybe she doesn’t want to be in touch with you.” Roberts said. While Bianca stood there, coming up with a million reasons why he was wrong, he continued. “Okay, I’ll pass along your message to Copeland. I gotta go.”
“My number is—”
“He’s got your number, Bianca,” he said like she still wasn’t seeing something that everyone else could.
“Fine. Thanks. Bye,” she mumbled, hitting the end button.
She went back to pacing, pretending that she wasn’t waiting for Elias to call her until she couldn’t take it anymore. She put Jinx in his harness even though he growled at it, and walked out her front door.
One of her brother’s cars was outside, watching. The driver was new. Some giant dude wearing dark sunglasses like he was in the Matrix. It was official. Her life as a free person was over. She started walking. The car started creeping along beside her. The driver rolled down the passenger side window.
“Miss Loring,” he called out. “Why don’t you get in?”
“I’m fine thanks,” she said, speeding up. Which was ridiculous because what was she going to do? Out fast-walk an SUV?
“I’d be happy to take you wherever you want to go,” the driver said with persistent pleasantness.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied.
He crept along next to her for another quarter of a block. “Just out walking your… er… dog, then?”
To be fair, Jinx did look more like a rat than a dog.
“Yes, just walking my mutant,” she said, making the driver laugh.
“He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it,” the driver noticed.
Jinx had sat down, refusing to go any farther. “He doesn’t believe in exercise,” she said, embarrassed.
Even the dog was conspiring against her. She reminded herself to keep her temper. It wasn’t this guy’s fault she’d screwed up, and he probably had orders from her uncle and brothers to stay with her no matter what. She stopped pretending that she could avoid this and scooped up Jinx.
“Can you take me to Furry Faces in Wellesley?” she asked, getting in the back of the SUV.
“Wait—go back,” Charles said, holding his sheers and his curry comb over the dog he was grooming gratis at Abbe’s dog shelter.
Charles was Abbe’s friend and well-known for being both an excellent groomer and breeder. His show dogs had won more awards than Meryl Streep, but he volunteered at the shelter, Furry Faces, helping the animals put their best paw forward for adoption.
“So hot cop—”
“Elias,” Abbe filled in for him.
“Why did he pull you over?” Charles continued. “Were you speeding?”
“Nope. If anything, we were going under the speed limit because it was dark and we couldn’t read the street signs,” Bianca said. She had told them everything about Halloween night, except, the part about what had happened in the boat. Abbe was becoming a dear friend to Bianca, but she was still her big brother’s girlfriend. Bianca knew she would probably tell Rafe that little nugget.
“So, he was waiting there for that car—the fancy race car,” Abbe finished.
Bianca took a breath in, paused, and realized Abbe was right. “Hewaswaiting there, wasn’t he?”
“And he was in plain clothes, right?” Charles said.
“Yeah, looking fabulous,” Bianca said, taking a sip of her vanilla latte. She’d showed up with coffees for everyone, of course. She wasn’t a savage. “You know he did say something that at the time I thought was ridiculous. He asked mewhat if the car never existedand my mind immediately went to—”
