6. Eli
ELI
I t’s past midnight and the mood is fucking dire by the time we get home. We’re no closer to finding Harley but there’s nothing more we can do tonight. Finding people seems to be our fucking Achilles heel lately.
We stayed in Danville for the first week after Freya ran, trying to track her while also harboring fucking futile hope that she’d come back. When she didn’t, we returned to Virginia and it’s like living in a ghost house without her here.
I don’t know how we used to function before Freya but we sure as hell don’t know how to now. Oz, Jude, and I sink down onto the couches around the coffee table, mulling in the silence. The atmosphere was tense enough before another fucking kid was taken. Now it’s borderline macabre.
River closes the front door and comes into the living room.
He takes one look at us and shakes his head.
“Enough of this. You’re acting like she’s already dead.
If Zach sticks to the same timeline as with Millie, then we have three weeks to find Harley.
We can do that.” River’s confidence falls flat among us.
Jude lies back on the couch and throws a ball up towards the ceiling. “We didn’t manage to last time.”
The reminder sits heavy in my gut but River brandishes a piece of paper between two fingers. “Last time, we didn’t have Freya.”
Oz and Jude sit up straight, and I stand, crossing the room to meet River as he heads to the kitchen island. “You found her?” A spark of something I thought died weeks ago flickers in my chest.
“Oz, I need you to trace a call.”
Jude paces the room as Oz gets set up.
I lean against the island, digging my hand into the back of my neck.
The burns I got from the explosion when Zach set us up only add to the ache from the old motorcycle injury, but in some ways the pain is satisfying.
It feels right to have a physical manifestation of the damage Freya’s caused to my heart.
I didn’t think it would beat again after Maxwell killed my mother, but clearly it restarted at some point because each day Freya’s gone it beats a little slower.
“Okay,” Oz says, looking up from his laptop. “We’re good to go.”
River nods, types in the number, and presses call.
The phone rings eight times before the call is accepted and the line goes quiet.
My breath catches as a cool, feminine voice answers but it’s not Freya.
“Agent River Park.”
River’s eyes darken as he answers. “Carmen.”
He presses his splayed hands into the marble surface of the island and glowers at the phone.
We’ve all changed over the past couple of months.
Oz isn’t sleeping, spending hours online searching for Freya.
Jude’s become quieter than he’s ever been and much to the guys’ dismay I’ve started riding again.
I know it’s not a great idea when my emotions are this on edge and my body pays for it, but speeding down the road on the back of Freya’s bike is the only place I feel close to her.
River though, he’s changed the most. I’ve known him since I was eight years old and no matter how bad things got, he’s always been the steady one. The control he demands, not just of others but of himself, keeps him grounded. He acts within a carefully prescribed framework. Or he did.
This River… this River calls to the darker side of me. I recognize what’s happening to him because I’ve been there. Only instead of spiraling like I did at fourteen, River’s control is focusing all of that darkness on one thing. Freya.
“I’ve got to admit, I’m impressed,” Carmen says, her voice ringing through the kitchen as Oz taps away. “I thought it would take you longer than two months to reach me.”
“Where is she, Carmen?”
“She’s safe.”
River’s tone lowers. “That’s not what I asked.”
“She came to me for a reason,” Carmen answers, her voice just as unforgiving. “I’m not going to break her trust.”
River glances at Oz.
He shakes his head and slams the laptop shut. Knowing what we do about her, it’s not a fucking surprise that Carmen is able to hide her location but Oz pinches the bridge of his nose, frustration digging into his brows.
The tendons in River’s neck tense. He snatches the phone off the island and strides towards his office, his Oxfords clacking against the wood.
I follow after him, because apparently these days I have to be the fucking responsible one.
I catch the door before he can slam it and slip inside the dimly lit office.
The desk that is normally impeccable is scattered with casefiles.
River puts the phone on top of an open folder and sits down in the faux leather chair. The lamp behind the desk casts a shadow over his face, intensity bleeding off of him.
I tuck my hands behind my back and lean against the wall by the door. “Just, tell us if she’s okay or not, Carmen,” I say. If River hears that Freya’s safe, it might take the edge off, bring him out of the tunnel vision he’s blinded by right now.
A soft sigh echoes from the phone. “She just needs time. And space.”
“Respectfully Carmen, that’s bullshit.” River’s gaze zeros in on the lit-up screen. “She was better with us, and you know it.”
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall. I hate that from the sounds of it, Freya isn’t okay, and I hate that Carmen isn’t backing down.
“She doesn’t want to be with you right now.”
River’s hand curls into a fist. “She doesn’t get that choice.”
“River, enough.” Carmen’s voice hardens.
“Cameron Isabella Scott-Grimaldi.”
My eyes flick open at the name River just dropped.
I haven’t heard it in years, but I doubt there’s a single person in America who doesn’t know the name.
Cameron Isabella was the daughter of former Senator Scott.
She was nine years old when she disappeared but that must have been about twenty years ago now.
Cameron was never found, she was assumed dead, but the silence radiating from the other end of the phone makes me think that’s not the case. From what Freya’s told us, Carmen would be about the right age…
“What do you want?” she finally asks.
Holy shit.
“Where’s Freya?”
“She needs time to process everything that’s happened to her.”
“And she can have that time. But she’ll have it with us .”
More silence.
“If you know who I am, then you know I’m not easily blackmailed. I can keep her safe here, River.”
River picks up the phone and leans back in his chair. “What about when she sneaks off to try and stop her brother when she finds out he’s taken another girl?”
Carmen knows as well as we do that Freya has a self-sacrificing streak a mile long. If she thinks someone is being hurt because of her, there’s nothing she won’t do to save them.
Carmen’s silence has River sitting forward. “She doesn’t know, does she? You haven’t told her.”
“She’s not exactly in a state to be reading the news.”
“And how long do you think you can keep that up? She’ll find out eventually, Carmen,” River warns.
He stands up and runs a hand through his dark hair. “Let us come and get her. We’ll keep her safe and catch Zach. Freya thought she was protecting everyone by running, when she finds out that’s not true you won’t be able to keep her there and you know it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I’m done negotiating, Cameron . Let us bring her home.”
I grip my biceps as I lean against the wall. I can feel how close we are to finding her like a buzz under my skin. Freya’s days of hiding are over.
That’s how this works, kitten. You run. We chase.