We eat in silence for a few minutes, and I’m trying to figure out how to have the conversation we need to have—about last night,about the tracker, about what the hell happens next—when my phone buzzes again.
Stone.Again.
Emma’s gray eyes flick to my phone. “You should probably answer that.”
“Probably.”
“He’s going to be furious.”
“Definitely.”
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “You’re going to get in trouble because of me.”
“I was already in trouble, swan. Just not because of you—because of me.” I stand, grabbing my phone. “I’ll be right back.”
I head outside into the cold, find a spot away from the entrance, and call Stone back.
He answers on the first ring.
“Where the fuck is my daughter?”
3
BONES
“Good morning to you too, brother,” I say, shifting so I’m holding the phone between my shoulder and my ear.
“Don’t ‘brother’ me right now, Bones. Emma left a note saying she’s sorry about missing Christmas and went back to New York. You left before dawn. So I’ll ask again—where is my daughter?”
I lean against the brick wall of the rest stop, watching cars scream down the highway. “She’s safe. She’s with me.”
Silence. Then, “With you.”
“Yeah.”
“Where, exactly?”
“South Carolina. Rest stop outside Greenville.”
Another stretch of silence. Somehow worse than the yelling I expected.
“You’re taking her back to New York,” Stone says finally.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
“She asked you to,” Stone repeats, voice flat.
“Yes, sir.”
I hear him inhale slowly, probably trying not to reach through the phone and strangle me for leaving without clearing it with him first.
“Turn around. Bring her back to Stoneheart. She needs time to recover, and she can take that here, with her family?—”
“No.”
