Page 94 of Red Hot Harmony

I couldn’t help but smile. Angry Camille was hot.

“I’m sorry,” she corrected herself. “I know it’s bad to say things like that about someone else’s child, but that girl is wild. Her parents spoiled her rotten and I don’t like any of her friends. She knows something. She and Ally are thick as thieves. That’s why she didn’t pick up the phone. I’m pretty sure she’s avoiding me.”

Camille was on edge.

I would be too...if Ally were my kid.

The idea gave me pause.

I dropped my gaze to my hands and saw them shaking.

“I’m sorry,” she went on. “I didn’t know what else to do or who else to ask. I’m so scared something bad happened to her.”

Without thinking, I brought my palm to her thigh and rested it against the rough denim, seeking contact like a junkie would seek their next fix.

Story of my life, ha.

A fraction of me expected her to swat my hand away, but she didn’t. Instead, we continued down the street and toward Woodland Hills in heavy silence.

Her phone rang several times and all of those panicked calls were from Harper.

“We’re moving the merch out of the store,” she explained, then proceeded to text her mother, whose phone company evidently had issues with service due to the fires, so messaging was the only way for people to get in touch with each other for now. Her fingers trembled and slipped across the keyboard and she scrunched up her face in concentration.

I felt helpless. One part of me knew that being here next to her made a difference because she wasn’t alone in this, but another part of me yearned to do something instead of just sit here.

Besides, texting behind the wheel in these conditions was becoming dangerous.

“Do you want me to drive so you can take care of your business?” I asked.

“That’s okay.” She shook her head.

“Camille,” I urged, touching her arm. “Please, let me.”

Finally, she gave in and we pulled onto the shoulder and switched.

I’d never driven a car this small and it definitely took some getting used to, but since time was of the essence, I forced myself to get over my unsubstantiated fears of wrecking someone else’s ride and pressed on.

The GPS took us farther south. We left the Calabasas city limits and entered Woodland Hills. The houses here were smaller and the streets a little more cluttered. Occasionally we came across a fire truck and a police cruiser, but the fire never came this far into the suburbs. Too much concrete and too many buildings. Here, people weren’t risking everything, but the air was just as bad once we pulled up into the circular driveway in front of a two-story cottage at the end of the quiet tree-lined street.

Camille covered her face and rushed to the house.

I followed.

She rang the bell, and moments later, the door swung open and a familiar woman in her thirties, the one I met at Ally’s first gig, hustled us inside.

Her eyes grew wide when I pulled the bandana down.

“Oh,” she said, staring.

“Camille cleared her throat. “Is Pauline back? Can I talk to her, Jules?”

The woman seemed to have snapped out of her trance and called her daughter over.

The whole thing was weird. I’d never interrogated a kid before, yet here we were. In her mother’s living room, settled into chairs while the girl took the couch.

“Do you know where Ally might be?” Camille asked, moving closer to the edge of her seat.

Pauline shook her head, her hands curled into a tight ball in her lap. “No. I haven’t talked to her since last night.”

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