It was time for her to move on as well. She was sick of talking about David. “Remember the pictures Vince used to draw of that girl?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” her mom replied. “How could I forget? You have a few, don’t you?”
“I framed them. Had them hanging on the wall.” She couldn’t tell her mom that she’d had to leave four of them behind.
“Vince would’ve loved that.”
And she couldn’t exactly tell her mother over the phone that the man she was secretly falling for thought the girl in the drawings could be his sister. That little detail would have to wait until they could talk in person.
“Was she an actual person? Did you ever meet her?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. She could hear her mother take a deep breath and blow it out. “According to Vince, she was real, but your father and I never met her. As I recall, her family had a cabin near where your brother and his friends used to go hiking and fishing. That’s how he met her.”
A cabin? Could that be true or was it a story Vince made up because he couldn’t tell any of them he’d met a girl who’d slipped through a portal? There may have been a cabin, all right, but Olivia doubted it belonged to the girl’s family.
She steeled herself for what she was going to say next. “Listen, Mom?”
“Yes…?”
“I don’t want to cause you to panic or anything, but…”
“But what?” her mother fired back. “You’d better not be planning to tell me something that’s going to get me more worried than I am now.”
That couldn’t be helped. She couldn’t not tell her some of what was happening. “I think they might be looking for me.”
“They?” There was a clunk and cursing on the other end of the line as she dropped the phone. “As in, you know who?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think David’s working with them?”
Olivia hadn’t thought about that possibility before. She wouldn’t put it past him to sell out his own grandmother in order to make a few dollars. However, she’d moved after she left David, so it wasn’t likely he knew about her new place. Which was now her old place.
As briefly and as nonspecifically as possible, she told her mother about the Night Patrol coming to her apartment. She conveniently left out the part about jumping from the balcony with Asher, sprinting from building to building and sabotaging a government vehicle. It was best to keep those sorts of details from one’s mother.
“Oh my God, Olivia. Why didn’t you tell me this when you first called? What is going on with you? You should’ve told me this right when you called, not wait like it’s just an afterthought.” The chastising continued a while longer, and Olivia tried to tune it out as best she could, letting her mother’s anger run its course.
When it began to wind down, Olivia spoke again. “I’m safe now.”
“Promise?” her mom said, sniffling. “You’re not just saying that to keep me from worrying, are you?”
You’re already worried.
“I promise, Mom. I’ll be fine.” She hoped to God she was right.
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance by Jennifer Ashley, Alyssa Day, Felicity Heaton, Erin Kellison, Laurie London, Erin Quinn, Bonnie Vanak and Caris Roane
CHAPTER 21
It was late afternoon when Asher turned the bike onto a seldom used logging road and wound up the mountainside. The rendezvous point was a mile from the second hairpin turn, then down a trail through the woods. His street-legal dirt bike maneuvered the rough path as if it were pavement, jumping a few rotted stumps in the way and tightly hugging the corners. When an abandoned hunting cabin appeared around the corner, Asher braked hard and cut the engine.
Before coming here, he’d gone to New Seattle and driven down every street and alley that wasn’t blocked off, taking care to avoid the roadblocks. He needed to find the Fixer, but with the Apocalypse Tonight Club gone, he didn’t know where to begin looking. He’d even walked the same route he and Toryn had taken when they’d tailed that squirrely sonofabitch named Eddie. Not that he really thought he’d discover anything that would lead him to the Fixer, but he needed to do something, and it was the only action he could think of.
Neyla, Rickert’s fiancée, appeared in the doorway wearing a pair of leather breeches, thick-soled boots, and a camouflage jacket. She’d been in the army, so she had combat training, but she was also a Protection-Talent, which gave her the ability to put a ring of impenetrability around a group of people. Since she was carrying a serious-looking dagger, she must be the one on watch duty.