Page 197 of Property of Whiskey

His attention sharpens immediately.

Another text appears.

SHE SAYS THAT’S PRICKLE’S FRIEND.

I type back.

Who is she?

The answer arrives almost immediately, probably Wren dictating while Glamaw works the phone.

MERCY

Every warm, lazy thing left over from sex disappears.

Whiskey takes the phone and looks at the word, then the drawing. “Wren’s never heard that name from me.”

“I never said it around her either. She wasn’t at the clubhouse?”

“No.”

“She didn’t hear Cider say it.”

“No.” His fingers tighten around my phone until the case gives a faint creak.

I take it before he cracks the damn thing and study the picture again.

Prickle, the strange skinny deer with little spines along its back.

The faceless woman beside him.

Mercy.

Whatever Mercy meant in Cider’s old memories, Pearly Gates, or the lives of the girls they held, Wren had no way to hear that name from us tonight.

That’s the problem.

Whiskey exhales slowly beside me. His eyes return to the drawing. “Get dressed. We’re going hunting.”

Chapter Fifteen

Whiskey

Twila Dix ain’t kidnapped anymore.

I know it. She knows it. The front door knows it, considering she’s got access to the knob, the lock, her phone, her clothes, and enough stubbornness to walk barefoot to Paradise if the mood hits.

Still doesn’t stop her from calling me her kidnapper every chance she gets.

After the Mercy text, we get dressed, grab her bag, and head back to my place. Which is how we end up pulling into my driveway after midnight with her arms around my waist and her mouth near my ear saying, “You know, most men buy a woman dinner before they abduct her for multiple nights.”

I kill the Harley. “You ate barbecue.”

“That was prison food.”

“You liked it.”

“I was vulnerable.”