Page 103 of Amber Gambler

Yeah, well, I lied. To her, and to myself.

“If you give up on yourself, even once, you’ll make it an option, an acceptable outcome, and you’ll forget why you fought so hard in the first place. Keep pushing your boundaries, never surrender ground to doubt, or it’ll pin you in a corner and never let you up again.”

“I like that you’re a fighter.”

“The key is to find something worth fighting for.”

“Yes.” His eyes fixed on me. “I believe you’re right.”

A call had me scrambling for my phone on the off chance Harrow had been cowed by my voicemail.

“You better not be sitting on the couch next to your brother,” Carter growled in my ear.

“Couch?” I jerked to my feet, raking my back raw on the bark. “You found him?”

“I meant you better not have gotten yourself kidnapped too.”

“Oh. No.” I reordered my thoughts. “I’m at the shop. With Kierce. We came to get help for Badb.”

“How is she?” Carter’s concern rang genuine. “I can’t handle a god-sized meltdown.”

“Much better.” Okay, so maybe not concern for the bird herself, but still. “How’s Josie?”

“Aretha verified she was under the influence of Ambien, but she countered it. Josie is already more alert but not happy. She slept through Harrow abducting Matty, and now she blames herself for him being taken. She’s trying to break out of my guest room as we speak.”

“Do you have any houseplants?”

“Only fake ones.” She hesitated. “She can’t control those, can she?”

“We’ve never been allowed to own them, so I can’t swear to it, but you should be safe.”

“Good.” She exhaled. “Aretha will sit with Josie. I’m on my way to the hotel. Crime scene techs will meet us there.” Her inhalation dragged across the line. “The 514 has put out an APB on Harrow. I would prefer not to involve SPD yet. They’ll be a greater hindrance than help at this stage. Our evidence is information they don’t need to learn. Pull one thread, and the whole tapestry unravels, you know?”

“I get that.” I cast my gaze across the street. “The feed to the cameras has been cut, right?”

“Yes.” She bit out the word with every bit of disgust I felt. “I’ve taken the liberty of contacting someone I trust to debug your property. She’s a technomancer. Anything Armie stuck up, she’ll pull down. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, can hide from her.” She paused. “If you have anyspecial friends, you might want to relocate those. Unless you’re cool with her knowing you keep a toy drawer and what’s in it.”

Special…? Oh.Oh. This was what I got for thinking about vibrators earlier.

Josie was the one who stood to take a financial hit in that department, but I knew without asking that she would be grateful for the excuse to toss everything and buy new things Armie had never touched.

Me? I would only be out like ten bucks. What could I say? I was easy to please.

“Tell your friend to have at it. As long as she doesn’t fry any major appliances, we’re good.” I waited for relief to come, but I was too angry to let it settle into me. “And thanks. For taking that off my plate.”

“It’s what friends do.”

“Yeah.” I pushed back the anger enough to smile. “It’s what friends do.”

Having a new friend—one with a pulse who didn’t also share a body with my brother—was pretty cool.

After I hung up with her, I returned my attention to Kierce, who was stroking Badb’s head while they did the silent-conversation thing. I didn’t have to ask him to know he wasn’t going to put down Badb, and he wasn’t going to let me go alone either. Which meant we needed a means for him to carry her.

We kept a lost-and-found box in the office for things left at the shop, and one of the latest additions gave me an idea that would either solve our problem or get my eyes pecked out.

The hotel buzzed with activity when we arrived, and I sat in the wagon for a minute to gather my courage to go in and face the techs dusting for prints and searching for clues. There were others, at the house Harrow had rented when he got back in town, and still more swept Lyle’s property for any hint as to where Harrow might have taken Matty.

When my phone rang, I figured Carter had spotted me and was about to tell me to get my butt upstairs, but a quick check of the caller ID disabused me of that notion. “Harrow.”

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