“Finally.” I grinned at Val. “So where’s it at?”
“I didn’t find the coin. Not exactly,” she said.
“Lula.”
“This isn’t going to make you happy, so I hope you’re not holding an antique you don’t want smashed against the wall.”
“Well, hell. Did I tell you I had to deal with a siren today? A swamp siren. And a rougarou. Like today can get any worse.
“So just tell me the next pile of crap I’m gonna wade through. Is it demons? More gods? Hellspawn? It’s hellspawn, isn’t it? Dammit, you know I rash when I kill those things.”
“No,” she said. “None of that. Take a deep breath.”
“Just pull the Band-Aid already.”
“There’s a note. That’s all that came back from the search terms.”
“A note.”
“Yes.”
“Read it, so I can weep.”
“It says: ‘Call me, Erica. Dad.’”
ChapterEleven
I pickedup the nearest object—not a priceless antique, but one of the rocks I kept in the center of the table—and heaved it at the wall where it pinged off with a satisfying ricochet.
I exhaled just on the edge of a yell: “Fuuuuuuck!”
“We’re on our way. Don’t call him until we get there.” Lula’s voice on the phone was small and tinny in the middle of the table.
“Ricky,” Val said. “Are you going to answer the panicked woman, or do you want to throw something else at the wall first?”
“She’s not panicked.”
Val crossed his arms over his chest and pointed one finger at the phone where, yes, I could hear the strained edge to Lu’s words.
I stopped stomping around the kitchen and scooped up the phone.
“...Cupid would have to get us there if we demanded it. Just give us a couple hours to pin him to the wall, and we’ll be there.”
“No,” I said, and then a little calmer, “Lula Gauge, you are not going to dig yourself in deeper with a god just because I don’t want to talk to my father. I got this. I talked to him when we were fighting the Hush, remember? I can do this. I can deal with him. I’ve managed it my whole life. I’ll manage it now.”
“I do not like you turning your life upside down for these men,” she said. “Kick him out.”
“Which one?”
“The one who’s there. Card. Kick Card out and let him deal with the fallout from his actions. He doesn’t deserve your kindness.”
I knew I didn’t have to be kind to him. But...I wanted to. And hearing her say otherwise set off just how much I liked having him around again.
I didn’t owe him anything—not even for when he’d risked his own life to tie me to the Crossroads magic. That debt, if there ever had been one, had long ago been erased.
The reason it had hurt so much to have him leave without telling me why was because I had loved him, dammit.
I still loved him. And I didn’t know what I was going to do about that.
