I smiled. “Thanks, Leo. I really appreciate it. For the moment, Harmony wants me to stick around here, so I’ll keep you posted on future steps.”
“Sounds good.”
I left his office and headed back to mine, wanting to talk to the only person I knew would make me feel truly safe, so I called Doom. I also wanted to let him know about my appointment to get my boot off next week.
“Hey,” he answered.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Good. You need somethin’?” He sounded irritated.
“Um…no. I just wanted to let you know I might be heading out of town for a few days.”
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I think we should part ways,” he said.
My stomach dropped and I wrapped my arm around my waist, the sting of tears starting in the back of my nose.
“Lyric, you still there?”
“Oh, um, yes. Sorry.”
“You good?” he asked.
No, my heart is breaking. Why the hell is my heart breaking?
“Yes. That’s fine. No harm, no foul,” I said, trying to sound confident.
“Great. Have a nice life.”
And then he was gone. I closed my office door, leaning against it and bursting into tears. I felt like my soul was being ripped from my body. My stomach roiled and I couldn’t catch my breath. The last time I felt like this was when I found out I’d never have a child of my own.
No. I refused to go through this again.
Luckily, I didn’t have time to wallow, as my sister called back and my life was suddenly set on an unexpected trajectory.
Within thirty-six hours, I was in Portland, safely ensconced in my sister’s home, Booger at Quin’s, and my home locked up and surveilled by local cops.
Jaxon had reached out to his friends in Savannah and they were doing a deep dive into Garrett from there while I was safely on the other side of the country. Once it was safe for me to go back, they’d let me know, but until then, I was on forced vacation.
* * *
Doom
My phone buzzed and I pulled it out to see Dalton Moore was calling. “Dalt? Are you home?”
Dalton lived part time in Scotland and part time here with his wife, Andi. He was supposedly ex-FBI, but he consulted a lot for them, so I got the impression he did more hours now as a consultant than when he was an agent.
“Yeah, brother, thought you might want to get a beer tonight.”
“Sure, man.”
“Okay, I’ll text you the details.”
“Sounds good.” I hung up and pulled up the invoice spreadsheet I’d been trying to reconcile all afternoon. Without success.
