His low laugh vibrates against me, and I almost don’t realize there’s another vibration coming from somewhere else cutting through the morning.
“Your phone?” he says.
I slap around the tent until I find it, glance at the readout, and smile. “It’s Bea.”
“Wanna take it?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Nuh-uh.”
He sounds like he could fall back asleep.
And that would be good for him.
“I’ll be quiet,” I whisper.
“I like your voice,” he mumbles back.
I’m smiling through emotions flooding my sinuses while I swipe to answer the call. “Hey,” I say to Bea.
There’s a pause, and then her sentence comes out in a rush. “I’ve been trying very, very hard to not look at where you’re at because I have plausible deniability that way, but I started seeing some things on social media when I was updating my pages this morning, and Daph—are you…have you…did you give away millions of dollars from Mississippi up through Iowa?”
Oliver tenses behind me.
Understandable.
I’m tensing in front of him.
“That’s a very specific question,” I finally force out.
“Oh my god, Daph,” she whispers.
Shit.
Shit.
Oliver’s grip tightens around me. “So we lay low for a few days,” he murmurs.
“How—” I swallow. Then try again. “How likely do you think it is that anyone else would think that’s what I’m doing?” I ask Bea. “Not saying I am or that I’m not. Just asking…do you think anyone else would suspect it?”
“Margot called a little bit ago.”
I put Bea on speaker and check my missed calls.
Four from Margot. The first at a reasonable, if early hour, then three in rapid succession about half an hour ago.
I took her off my emergency contact list so that her calls wouldn’t ring through the way Bea’s do while I’m traveling.
“What did you tell her?” I whisper.
“Exactly what you asked. That you said you needed to disconnect and go camping for a while.”
“She gave a marvelous performance,” Simon says in the background. “I believed every word.”
“Did she believe you?” I ask Bea.
“Daphne, I love you, and I will continue to always love you, but in the spirit of honesty, I have to tell you that I checked your location this morning, even though I really, really didn’t want to look… It’s just that, when the reports started saying a woman with fairy tattoos and blue and green highlights in her hair, wearing a unicorn T-shirt, was with a guy—and I know you—and I…can you maybe please tell me you’re okay and I don’t need to worry that you’re into something you can’t handle?”
