“Come here.” Lacey held her arms out.
“What?” But Linc was already moving. She met him in the middle of the room, and a minute later Lilah was there too while two little bodies clung to their legs. A cough came from the corner, and they ignored it.
“Don’t you stay away anymore,” Lacey said.
“I won’t.” He’d never meant anything more in his life.
His phone rang. Thank God it rang. He needed Avery. Needed to tell him what had happened and how he was wrong to have been afraid before. He would—
Vasquez.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello.” Her voice was flat. “He sayshello.”
He laughed, a bit nervously. “Yeah. Hello. It’s what people say when they answer the phone.”
“Are you answering your phone from beyond the grave?”
“No. I—”
“Because dead is about the only excuse I’m going accept for what you did last night.”
“What? I—”
“He is, right now, puking his guts out, and then he’ll go back to curling up in a ball. And, Scott? If you’re not here when he’s feeling better, I will hunt you down and murder you with a ballpoint pen.”
If Lacey and Vasquez ever wound up in a room together, the world needed to be very afraid.
“Avery? Are you talking about Avery? Vasquez, what are you—”
“You have an hour to pull yourself out of whatever ditch you’re lying in and get over here.”
