Chapter 11 #3
If I’d known sooner, if my fucking wolf had just felt the bond when it should have, then I wouldn’t be sitting here feeling like shit. I would never have let her into my life, into Ethan’s life. I would never have—
A loud ringtone interrupts my thoughts, and I look around, bewildered. It’s not my phone. It’s some ringtone I’ve never heard before. And it’s coming from the backseat. Stopping the car on the side of the road, I get out and search. The phone is under the seat.
It’s Miranda’s.
It must have slipped from her pocket when I carried her in. The screen shows an incoming call from a contact saved only as B.
Who the hell is B?
I let it ring out. It starts again immediately. Then a third time, back to back, with the single-mindedness of someone who already knows something is wrong.
I pick it up. “Hello.”
A pause. Then a woman’s voice sounds on the other end, deeply suspicious. “Who is this? Why do you have Miranda’s phone? Where’s Miranda?”
“She left her phone in my car,” I reply, feeling relieved that B is a woman and not a man. I conveniently ignore the guilt that follows that thought.
“Who are you?” the woman demands. “And where is Miranda?”
“I’m her”—I pause, not knowing what to say—“friend. And she’s at my house.”
“Which friend? I know all of Miranda’s friends. She doesn’t have any guy friends. Who are you?”
Her constant yapping makes me flinch. I’m about to hang up on her when I hear her say, “Wait, don’t tell me you’re that guy with the kid.”
I freeze. “What?”
Miranda told her about me and Ethan? How could she tell a stranger about Ethan? A wave of fury washes over me. I trusted her!
“...the one she got fired over.” The woman is still talking.
I stare at the phone. “What?”
The scoffing sound on the other end is filled with anger. “What? She didn’t tell you? Some friend you are. She lost her job because of you, you asshole! Now tell me where Miranda is. I want to see her.”
I try to speak, but the words get stuck in my throat. Fired? Miranda was fired from the hospital?
“When?” I force the question out. “When was she fired?”
“A week ago.”
“Why?”
“I don’t see why I have to tell you anything.
If she didn’t tell you, then I’m not telling you either.
” Her friend is clearly angry. “I want to speak to Miranda. Tell her to call me back. I emptied out her locker for her.” When I don’t say anything, she continues, “Listen, asshole, if I don’t hear back from her in a few hours, I’m going to call the police.
I don’t know who you are or why you’re so involved with my best friend, but I know she’s with you now, and if she doesn’t call me back soon, I will tell the police everything I know. Don’t mess with me.”
“I’ll have her call you back,” I say numbly. Fired.
So that’s why she didn’t come to practice.
I lean against the car, my thoughts racing. Suddenly the weariness in her eyes, the subdued nature makes so much sense.
She lost her job. I just fired her from the team’s medical staff position. I told her to stay away from me and Ethan.
My hand is reaching for the car door, blindly, a strange urgency filling me.
The hollow look in her eyes, the emptiness. I’ve seen it before, but in somebody else.
My brother.
Just a few days before he—
I haven’t let myself think about those six days in years. I’ve built walls around them thick enough that most of the time I forget they’re there. But it finds the gap now, and it doesn’t let go. Six days between losing everything and the morning they found him.
I press down on the accelerator. The city drops behind me, and the mountain road opens up, and I push the car harder than I should all the way back to the estate, through the gates, up the drive, and I’m out of the car and taking the front steps in two strides before the engine has finished ticking down.
“Linda!”
She appears at the top of the stairs with Ethan on her hip, his head drooping toward her shoulder, half-asleep already. She blinks at me. “Grayson, I didn’t hear—”
Ignoring her, I head up the stairs. The door to my bedroom is open.
“Mirand—”
There’s no one there.
I stare at the empty bed before hurrying toward the bathroom. It’s empty as well.
“Linda!” Panic is beginning to fill me as I bound down the stairs, my wolf uneasy. “Where is she?”
Linda looks uncomfortable. “She asked me to book a car for her about twenty minutes after you left.”
The cold moves from my stomach to my spine.
“You booked it?”
“She said you asked her to leave. She wouldn’t even say goodbye to Ethan. He’s been crying ever since.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I roar, and she flinches.
“You were the one who said she would be gone soon. I didn’t know I was supposed to make her stay!”
I stare at the older woman. I did say that. I did say that, but I didn’t mean, I didn’t think—
“What’s the address?” I demand.
Linda picks up her phone from the hall table and reads it to me.
I know that address. I’ve had it sitting in the back of my mind for two months, since I first started looking into Kozlov. She’s going to his office.
I can only think of one reason.
A woman pushed to the edge, stripped of everything. She has no reason to fight anymore.
“Stay with Ethan,” I snarl.
I’m out the door before she can answer.