Page 54 of Velvet and Valor
“Hey, it’s okay, you didn’t lose me.” She rolls over onto her side and smiles, her face beautiful in spite of the streaks of mud.
“You shouldn’t be reassuring me for god’s sake, you’re the one who almost drowned.”
“But I didn’t. It’s not even the first time I almost drowned,” she says. “I had a bad experience with a boogie board when I was twelve. Got caught in a riptide, and if it hadn’t been for a Coast Guard ship I wouldn’t have made it back.”
“Man, that’s dicey. Especially for a kid that young.” I sit up, feeling much stronger. It’s as if the sun is giving me its strength. Or maybe I'm just not frozen to the point of weakness any longer. “You’re strong, June. Stronger than me.”
“Damn right I am,” she says with a wink. “And don’t you forget it.”
Her face twists into a grimace.
“Holy shit, is that my purse?”
“What? Where?” I ask.
She points at the black Gucci bag hanging from a tree branch about twenty feet off the road.
“My purse!”
June, spurred on by hope, slides off the boulder and walks unsteadily to the hanging purse. She pulls it down and opens it.
“Why in the world would they even bother?”
“Is your phone still in there?” I ask, trying to anticipate the disappointment if it’s not.
June looks inside the purse, grimaces, and then closes it. She clutches the purse to her chest as she comes over to my side.
“Oh no,” I say. “Not in there?”
June pulls the phone out and sticks her tongue out at me. I soon join in with her wicked laughter.
“You had me going, not gonna lie,” I say.
“Well, I’m not sure who to call. A tow truck? A taxi?”
“I’d say Platinum Security. Someone will come and get us…assuming they can find us. I’m not even sure where we are at this point.”
“We’ll figure it out…”
She groans.
“I’ve got no bars. Wait, one bar….no, yes, one bar.”
“The fake cop’s GPS was working before,” I say. “I think it’s because we’re down in this gully. If we get a little higher, we might be able to get a strong enough signal to make a call. Or even just a text.”
She nods, and we walk up the road. It’s not nearly as steep on foot as it had seemed in the car. I guess everything is relative.
Sure enough, we have plenty of bars once we get out of the valley. She hands the phone to me, and I wait while it rings. And rings. And rings.
“Platinum Security, VIP Clients a specialty, fees negotiable. How may I assist you?”
“Dane?” I say. “You sounded, like, professional, man.”
“Axel? That you?”
“Yeah, barely. We ran into some trouble.”
“Not good.” I can almost picture his steely eyed gaze on the other end of the line. “How’s your client?”
