He says goodbye and once the line is free, I switch over to Oz’s call. “What’s happened?”
“Freya’s gone.” The words hit me in the solar plexus, but I’d braced for them. Part of me knew that’s what he was going to say before I even picked up the phone. I’m already up and out of the office, putting Oz on speaker as I pull up Freya’s tracker bracelet information.
“I traced her through the security cameras to an elevator,” Oz tells me. “Reaper follows her in and then the feed cuts out so I’m assuming they went to the sub-basement.”
I eye the red line on my screen, showing the path Freya’s taken. “Check Angelica’s tracker.”
A pause from Oz and then, “Not receiving.”
“River?” Jude’s concerned voice joins the call.
“It’s fine. She’s not running,” I tell them, my teeth gritted. “She’s just misbehaving.”
I unfurl my fingers, the newly healed bone in my wrist aching. “Meet me at the car in five. I know where she’s going.”
I shake my head. I should have realized she’d do something like this after the death stare she shot my way earlier. What I don’t understand is how she thought she’d get away with it.
Locking my office behind me, I head down to the parking lot. I let Eli drive because I’m too busy thinking of all the ways I’m going to make Freya pay for this little stunt of hers. The safehouse is almost an hour away so I have a very long list by the time Eli pulls up onto the blacktop drive.
Jack’s car is already here and I’m debating whether I can get away with firing him when Eli’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“Can we really blame her for wanting to see her mother?”
Maybe not, but I can blame her for the way she went about it. I thought we were past this point. She knows the rules. She sat there and made them with me. So, what the hell was she thinking?
I get out of the car and stride up the drive.
The house is modest with three bedrooms and a closed plan kitchen and living room. I helped Hannah and her parents get settled here so I know the layout even before Hannah’s mother opens the door.
Mary is a slight woman, and wrinkles line her face as she smiles up at me. “We’re getting all the visitors today it seems. I just met my granddaughters.” Joy lights her eyes and my initial instinct to throw Freya over my shoulder and carry her out of here fades away.
“Come,” Mary says. “We’re in the kitchen.”
The four of us follow her into the house. Hannah and her father, Peter, sit at the wooden kitchen table across from Freya and Angelica.
Jack’s taken the head of the table, a deceptively unarming smile at his lips as he talks with Peter. The conversation dies when we appear in the doorway and as much as I want to have words with Jack, I only have eyes for Freya.
She tenses under my gaze like she can sense how dangerous I am right now and that even the slightest movement might set me off.Smart woman.
“Why don’t we move into the living room, there’s more space there,” Mary says, breaking the silence.
For a moment, no one moves. Angelica’s gaze is locked on her mother while Hannah watches her twin daughters and Freya stares back at me.
Peter, Mary’s husband, stands first. He’s a tall, thin man with short gray hair and a receding widow’s peak. “Well, I for one think that’s a great idea, these chairs are murder on my back,” he says. “I’ll bring the snacks.”
Everyone else gets up and I step to one side to let them pass into the hall and across to the living room.
Freya’s the last out but I stop her with my arm around her waist. I pull the curve of her ass back against me and dip my lips to the shell of her ear. “It’s like youwantto get punished,” I murmur.
Freya whips her head around to look at me, an inferno burning in her forest eyes. “Maybe I do.”
I blink. My grip on her waist tightens. “For the love of God Freya, tell me you didn’t do this just to provoke me.”
Her jaw ticks. “You’re treating me like I’m made of glass. I had to do something.”
My mouth parts but for once I find that I can’t argue. She’s right, I have been holding back my more dominant urges. I scared myself by how dark I went and I think a part of me was worried that punishing Freya would ruin the new peace we’d found.
A soft sigh leaves her lips, and she twists in my hold, her hand coming up to my chest. “Forget about us for a moment, your protectiveness is also getting in the way of the case. Youknow as well as I do that Hannah may have answers that help us find Zach.” She shrugs. “And we’re here now…”
