AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And the adoration he expresses when looking at his brother can’t be denied.
He’d do anything for River.
Anything at all.
As words River wrote circle through my weary head, a shadow fills the door of his room.
“What are you doing in here, Nicole?” Knox asks, his tone suspicious.
“River left,” I reply while shaking his tablet.
“What?” I can’t tell if his voice is shocked or relieved. “Are you sure he’s gone? He might have just popped out to grab some sarsaparilla. He’s notorious for wandering off when hungry.”
“He hasn’t gone out for a soda. He left me a note.”
“Where is it?”
His eyes stop darting in all directions when I shake the tablet for a second time. Then he snatches it from my grasp so fast he almost cracks the screen.
“It’s fucking locked,” he mutters before tossing it onto the bed. Too impatient to acknowledge I couldn’t have read his note without the passcode, he asks, “What did it say?”
The unexpected fear in his voice has me speaking slowly. “That families are meant to have each other’s backs and that Laken needs his help.”
“Is that where you think he’s gone? To find Laken?”
Nodding, I stray my eyes to the phone book that announces River’s investigative skills.
“All right.” Knox takes a moment to think before he checks the time on his watch. It is flashier than Laken’s but just as old. “I’ll send someone to”—he reads the circled hotel name—“Dusty Sky Inn to pick him up.”
“You don’t think we should go? He sounded pretty determined to stay away in his letter.”And heartbroken,but I keep that to myself.
I balk when he highlights my word. “We?” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. “No,wedon’t have time to galivant across LA. Things are progressing too quickly for that.” He bands his arm around my shoulders and guides me down the hallway. “You have an interview to conduct and a live performance to give.” He chuckles like the situation isn’t as dire as it is. “And I have a fuck ton of records to sell.”
When I’m shoved into my room to change out of my stained skirt, I spin to face him, disgusted he’s placing record sales above River’s safety. “Knox—”
“I’ll bring him home, Nicole. I promise you, by the end of tonight, he’ll be standing across from you, sorry he ever left.”
My trust is low, but since my faith in myself is even lower, I bob my head like it isn’t screaming at me to stop being so blind.
32
LAKEN
“Samson. S-A-M—”
The clerk from the umpteenth hotel I’ve called this evening cuts me off. “There’s no guest of that name at our hotel.”
I wet my lips before testing the friendliness of her tone with another name. I tried River’s before Knox’s, so there’s only one name left on my list. “What about Nicole Reed? Is she a guest?”
“Nicole Reed…” Just her saying Nicole’s name sends my heart into a frenzy. It thuds as wildly as it did this morning when Dallas pulled one of the hotel’s town cars in front of me and demanded I get in.
I was seconds from being trampled.
“Reed? Did you say Nicole Reed?” the clerk double-checks.
“Uh-huh. R-E-E-D.”
“I know how it’s spelled.” Her tone is no longer friendly. It is clipped and stern. “What did you say your name was again?”
