Page 93 of Red Hot Harmony

Automatically, I closed the distance between us and met her gaze.

“Ally’s missing,” she said to me from behind the veil of ash. “I think she ran away.”

The words stunned me into silence.

Suddenly, I found myself grasping at my head with both hands. There were a few lost seconds because I couldn’t remember changing my pose and I blamed it on my fucked-up brain rather than my emotions.

“I went to the police,” Camille began, her voice sounding harsh and broken.

“All right.” I was finally getting a hold of myself and my mind kicked into a furious work mode. “Do they have someone looking for her?”

“Yes. The woman I spoke to said they’d send out her information to the patrol units, but—” she wrung her hands and looked away briefly, somewhere in the distance. “With the fires and all…”

I reached out and took her shoulders. “Hey, calm down. It’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.” As soon as the phrase left my mouth, I realized I sounded like a fanny-pack-wearing suburban husband. I waited for the cringe factor to dominate me, but nothing happened.

Camille drew a deep breath and stared up at me again. There were flecks of ash in her lashes and hair and then it hit me. I couldn’t just stand there, tell her things would work themselves out, and watch her life fall apart.

The need to do something, anything, was overwhelming.

“I’ll help you look for her,” I offered.

“Really?” Her tone changed, became hopeful.

“Of course.” I knew eventually I had to let her shoulders go, but my fingers refused to unglue themselves. The touch wasn’t sexual. It was more of a reassurance we were still one. Connected. Even if the circumstances weren’t happy.

Behind me, the car door flung open. I spun around and saw Malik getting out of the passenger seat. He walked in our direction, palm over his nose and mouth. “Is everything okay?”

“No.” I shook my head, then steered him away and whispered, “I’m going to help Camille look for Ally. They had a fight yesterday and now she’s missing. Are you cool to be on your own? In case she shows up here.” I wasn’t sure that my argument was valid. Teenagers didn’t tend to run away from one adult to another. I had some experience with that since I’d done everything in my power to spend as little time in my own house, with my family, or in my relatives’ company when I was a kid.

Malik gave a mean stare. “For real, bro?”

“Man, I’m fucking worried,” I hissed through my teeth, not wanting Camille to overhear. She had enough on her plate already. “I don’t want to come back home and find you passed out again.” I punched his arm. “Don’t ever do that shit. You understand?”

He didn’t give me a response.

“Feed my dog!” I motioned at the Navigator. “And don’t wreck my car.”

At that, Malik grinned. I could see the movement of a smile behind his palm. “I can’t promise that. Your driveway is awfully long and the visibility is awfully poor.”

“Fuck you, Dixon!” I shouted as he hopped back to the car and settled behind the wheel.

“Fuck you too, Martinez!”

Seconds later, Camille and I climbed into the Jaguar and were on our way.

I needed a couple of minutes to process the change.

We’d parted as enemies hours ago, and now we were sitting next to each other, mere inches apart, and all the hurt and animosity suddenly seemed unimportant. Gone.

“We have to talk to Pauline,” Camille said after a while.

“Ally’s friend?” I remembered her clearly from the very first Systematic gig.

“Yes. I left her a bunch of messages, which she didn’t answer. I did speak to Jules. Apparently, she’s been in the studio, recording, and is about to get home.”

“Okay.”

“Can you imagine?” She shot me a sideways glance. “The entire state is burning and that little shit is recording.”

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