She’s chewing on her bottom lip.
She still looks really fucking cute.
“Yourgrandfather’s friendsdon’t like me,” I say. “And they’re not making a secret of it, at all.”
“I know.” She looks really sorry, actually.
“Can you talk to them?”
“I have.”
I huff out a breath. “Am I still at risk for being kidnapped?”
“Maybe? Probably not. But I can’t be one-hundred percent sure.”
Astrid looks from Nora to me, then back. “What?”
“Leo, Brewser, and Wilson were going to take him out to Leo’s cabin and dump him off. To scare him a little. Punish him for how he treated Harley,” Nora explains.
“I would have noticed he was missing,” Astrid says.
“Yes. But you wouldn’t have been able to find him. And even if youdidfind out where he was, you couldn’t have gotten to him. You would need an airboat, hip waders, and a very good knowledge of the bayou. Which, I’m just guessing, you don’t have.”
I can tell Nora’s trying not to smile.
She thinks this is funny?
“Thecopsprobably have all of that, though, right?” Astrid asks.
But then I really look at my sister, and I think she’s also trying not to smile.
Nora nods. “Yes, except for the very good knowledge of the bayou. I mean they do have some knowledge, but it’s a very wild, winding place. They simply can’t know it as well as those guys do.”
“So he would have just been stranded out there until they decided to go get him?” Astrid asks. “Is there food? Water?”
“They probably would have left some food and water. Though nothing perishable, of course. Nothing that would attract critters.”
“Define critters,” Astrid says. “Like raccoons?”
“More like nutria. And gators, of course.”
Astrid nods. “Of course.”
“And nothing that would need to be cooked. Since there’s only a generator for power and I would guess they don’t have it hooked up. Or that Alex would know how to hook it up.”
“So he’d also be in the dark,” Astrid says.
“Yes.”
“Wow. That really would be a pretty great way to make him think about what he did and regret it.”
My sister looks at me. I meet her gaze with both brows up. “You enjoying yourself?”
“Picturing the guy who travels with his own pillow and who complains if the hotel thermostat doesn’t work perfectly in a cabin with beef jerky and no power? Yeah, a little,” she says with a grin.
“Okay, Mrs. Pot, look who’s calling the kettle black.”
Nora giggles and I have an urge to reach over and pull her into my lap for some reason.
