Page 80 of No Good Fight

He nods too fast. “My wife?”

“She’s with EMS.” I glance toward the ambulance, where Casey has the woman wrapped in a blanket with an oxygen mask over her face. “She’s talking. That’s what we want.”

Josh gives me the spreaders, and for the next few minutes, I make myself useful. Metal groans. Rain hisses against the road. Someone behind me tells traffic to move back, and the driver grips my sleeve when the door finally gives with a hard, ugly pop. I talk him through it because that’s the job. I keep my voice low and my hands sure, and by the time we get him loaded, no one but Josh would know half my brain has been counting the minutes since Alex stopped answering.

Forty-eight.

I step behind the engine, pull one glove off with my teeth, and take out my phone.

Nothing from Alex.

Two texts from Remy.

I open Alex’s thread first anyway.

Me: You okay?

The message sits there. Delivered. Not read.

My hand tightens around the phone until the edge bites into my palm. She was going to file the report after I left the newsroom. Remy was with her. Marcy was with her. She promised she would call if she needed me. All of that should be enough to keep me from imagining Preston between her and an exit, Preston with another note, Preston finding another way into a place she thought was safe.

It isn’t.

Josh steps into my peripheral vision, quiet enough that I know the next conversation is going to be a problem. “Who isn’t answering?”

I lock the screen. “Nobody.”

“Try again.”

“Not now.”

His jaw shifts beneath the rain dripping down his face. “Every time I ask you a simple question today, you look like you’re deciding whether lying to me is worth it.”

I look past him toward the ambulance because it is easier than looking at my best friend. “Alex filed a report.”

Josh goes still. The scene keeps moving around us, but he doesn’t. “What kind of report?”

My phone buzzes before I can answer, and I hate the relief that cuts through me hard enough to make my knees feel unsteady.

Alex: Still alive. Statement done. Remy bought me coffee that tasted like punishment, so I’m going back to your house before anyone else tries to be emotionally supportive at me.

I read it twice while Josh watches my face.

Me: Are you headed there now?

Alex: Almost. Marcy drove me because apparently people have thoughts about me operating heavy machinery while rage-shaking.

Me: Your car is not heavy machinery.

Alex: It is when I’m mad enough to drive it into a municipal building.

A rough breath leaves me before I can stop it. Josh sees that too.

“Ryder,” he says. “Why the fuck is my sister filing a report and you know about it and I don’t.”

I slide the phone away because I cannot explain this with mud on my boots and a wrecked truck behind me. Not without making it sound smaller than it is or worse than Alex wants him to know. “She’s safe. That’s all I can tell you right now.”

His expression hardens. “That’s my sister.”