"I do. It's one-six-five-bravo-echo-hotel."
Another of those pauses. "Very good, Miss Smith. Category?"
"Um. Just…code red."
"I'm sorry, Miss Smith, but that's not a recognized category."
"Goddammit," she whispers, her voice losing the even, measured quality for a moment, going shaky. "I need a return ticket."
"Thank you, miss. Shall I have your agent return your call to this number?"
“Yes, please."
"Very good, miss." A pause. "I have contacted your agent. Doc Smith will be contacting you very shortly. Will that be all?" The emphasis on ‘very’ seems intentional and important in this coded conversation.
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."
"It's my pleasure, Miss Smith. Take care and thank you for contacting Acme Concierge Service. Goodbye."
Bryn ends the call and sets the phone on her thigh, staring at it expectantly.
"Sorry, but Acme—?" I start.
She holds up a finger, indicating I should shut up and wait, so I do. At literally the very moment she lifts that finger, the phone rings. She answers on the first ring, putting it on speaker.
"Hi, Daddy," she whispers, her voice shaky. "You're on speaker and I'm not alone, but I…well, it's complicated, but I'm mostly safe and able to speak freely."
There's a significant pause, and then a low, silky-smooth, hard-as-nails voice slides across the line. "When you, your mother, your brother, and I spent a week at Disney World when you were nine, I purchased a souvenir for you. What was it, and what did you call it?"
She licks her lips, exhaling slowly. "A stuffed llama. I called her Yammie, because I'd just started taking Spanish lessons and figured they should be called yammas rather than llamas."
"If you are able to speak freely, tell me five significant details of the person you are with."
"His name is Rush. He's former SAS. He works, or worked, for Roberto Pugli, who is responsible for this whole…situation I'm in. He needs, for a reason I have not yet discovered, a quarter million dollars. Two hundred and seventy-six thousand and change—it's a very specific number. Um. He…Oh, he's fluent in French and German."
There's another heavy pause. The voice returns—Nicholas Harris, I assume. The legend is real. "Bryn. Sweetheart. I love the shit out of you, girl, but what the actual fuck?" The last word is furious, snarled.
"I'm sorry, Daddy.”
"You give your bodyguards the slip by picking a fight—" I hear Mom's voice in the background, muffled and unclear. "Do not encourage her, Layla. And then you fucking vanish off the face of the earth. In the wake of your little Houdini act, at least six men have turned up dead. Two of whom were brutally murdered in what I can only describe as clever ways that tell me you’ve taken a few situational survival lessons from your mother."
"That's…accurate."
"Elaborate, Bryn. Now.”
Oooh boy, Daddy is peeved.
Bryn launches into a facts-only retelling of the events, and it doesn't seem like she leaves anything out except for our little sexual side quest.
And my betrayal.
Once she's done—having made it seem like Pugli captured us rather than the truth, her father is silent again. "You're lying about something." His voice is cold. "Don't."
"Daddy, I—"
"I have four fucking fireteams scouring Europe for you. I pulled your Uncle Lear away from a very important case to track your movements. Your mother is frantic. Your brother and Cal are beside themselves. Law enforcement from three different countries have your fucking face on their wanted lists." His voice rises in volume—just a hair above the quiet, conversational tone he's used so far. It seems significant, though I don’t know the man from Adam. "So, I will say this only once, Bryn Eloise Harris. Do—not—fucking—LIE—to—me.” He bites out each word, snapping the world "lie" with vicious intensity.
"Tell him the truth, Bryn," I murmur. "I'll accept the consequences."
