Page 96 of Love Him Like Water

Elian.

Who’d called me first. Several times.

Elian didn’t call for no reason.

Not when he knew I was busy.

I moved across the floor, grabbing the phone from Rico, and putting it to my ear.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Lore isn’t home,” he said, making my stomach tense.

“I know,” I said, memory flashing back to her on the street with that big smile. Like she was fucking happy to see me. All excited to tell me something. Then fading when I’d used my work voice on her. “I saw her a while ago.”

“She was getting coffee for us. Said she’d be gone twenty minutes.” There was a barely controlled tension in his voice.

Lore had been holding coffees—two frozen ones with whipped cream and chocolate—when I’d seen her.

“How long ago was that?” I asked, having no sense of time while interrogating the stubborn-ass kid.

I moved outside, not wanting him to overhear this conversation, walking down the street toward the corner, glancing around.

“Almost two hours,” Elian said, making my heart stutter.

Not just because of the time lost, but because there was no way she would have just carelessly taken a walk or something with two steadily melting frozen coffees in her hands.

“I called her. Over and over,” he said, and it suddenly occurred to me that he had my wife’s phone number… and I still didn’t. “She’s not answering.”

My gaze scanned the streets again, trying not to panic.

But when I looked down, I saw the two frozen coffees, completely full, in the trash can.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“What is it?” Rico asked.

“Lore is missing. These are the coffees she had when she came down the street to talk to me.”

“She was here?” Rico asked, glancing back toward the building where the kid and Dav were still situated.

“Yeah. She was probably just passing by and saw me. Wanted to talk to me about something, but you guys were struggling with that kid,” I said. “Did you see her when you came to the car?”

“No,” he said. “And I scanned the street.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

“You don’t think that…” Rico started.

“Think what?” I asked when he trailed off.

“Think that whoever is after your crown saw her and took her. Maybe to lure you out.”

I hadn’t been thinking that, no.

But, fuck, now I was.

---