“Yeah, maybe if we slept together, we would cancel each other out.”
Oh my God.
I wanted to die.
“I can’t believe I just said that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
He chuckled again. “It’s okay. You’re obviously tired enough to be mashing your words, so maybe you are ready for sleep. Either that, or you raided the wine cabinet, and I’ll have to explain to my dad why his best labels are all gone.”
“I didn’t pop any more bottles, promise.”
“Good. I was right to trust you with them.”
“Bray?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for talking to me. And for keeping me safe.”
The pause filling the line this time was warm and gentle and made me wish I was talking to his face and not my phone. “You’re welcome. Good night, Erin.”
“Good night … Cal.”
The smile in his voice was apparent. “Get some rest. Everything will be fine tomorrow.”
I ended the call and rolled over, convincing myself he was right.
Whatever strings Bray was pulling to get to my father, it took all day to pull them. Long enough that I ran ten miles on his parents’ treadmill, binged half a season ofThe Office,convinced Simmons to play chess with me, and considered opening another bottle of wine. The sun had fully set by the time my phone rang.
“We’re ready. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Bray said with no preamble or further information.
I dressed in the cashmere sweater, jeans, and a coat because the night had grown chilly, and I assumed our rendezvous would be outdoors, maybe near water. Someplace off the grid, as Bray had said. Having been invisible for a decade, I certainly couldn’t walk into a prison for a chat, not even with a really good disguise. The risk was too great. While I waited for him to arrive, I stood at the back window, staring at the prison, and wondering how Bray had made this happen. What reason they’d given my father for an off-site fieldtrip on no notice.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, beneath the nerves and tension roiling through me, I wondered if he already knew. If some network on the inside told him Olena was out, and there was a hit on the girl who supposedly stole from her and got her sent to prison.
“Ms. Daniels,” Simmons’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I turned to see him in the kitchen, and Bray entering through the garage door. The relief spilling over me at the sight of him was not subtle. He wore slacks and a windbreaker over his dark shirt. His gun was holstered at his hip. A layer of scruff coated his jaw, and I wondered if he truly had spent the night at the station.
“Hey. Ready?” he asked when he saw me.
I nodded even though it wasn’t true.
“Great. Simmons will drive. You and I will ride in back. The prison transporter is meeting us in a half hour. We won’t have long with him.”
I nodded again, unable to speak around my nerves.
“Give us a minute, will you?” he said to Simmons, and crossed the room to where I stood.
Simmons left through the garage door, and it was just the two of us in the stark white kitchen. I could nearly hear my heart pounding.
“Erin, it’s going to be fine. He’ll be cuffed and monitored. Going anywhere high security would put you on radar you don’t want to be on, so it has to be this way.”
I nodded and swallowed against my dry throat. “I know.”
He placed his warm hands on my shoulders. “You’ll be fine.”
I nodded once more.
