Strong Enough(10)

And just like that, I feel the first pang of guilt that I’ve had in seven long years.





FIVE


Muse

By seven in the morning, I’m perched on the edge of the couch, watching the street through the filmy black scarves that cover my living room window. I’ve been sitting here for eleven minutes, mainly because I slept very little and have been up since five packing. I had no idea what kind of clothes I might need. I mean will this be like a spy movie where we’ll be sneaking around, all covert and stuff? Will we be visiting questionable biker bars and beating information out of lowlifes? Or is this a case of I watch too much television, our trip will be nothing like that and I’ll spend a lot of time in the car? I don’t know because Jasper didn’t tell me. Big surprise! And I’ve never had to search for someone like this before—or hire someone to search for someone like this either—so I packed a little of everything plus a couple of days’ worth of travel clothes. That’s the one thing I could find out for sure. We’ll be on the road for approximately thirty-six hours. That requires a lot of yoga pants.

My phone rings in my hand. It’s my boss, Miran. I called her to tell her I need some time off. Her return call reminds me that I forgot my charger. I answer as I scramble up the steps to retrieve it. “Hello?”

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you in jail? Did you get mugged?” comes the machine gun–like fire of questions.

“Yes, no, no and no,” I reply.

I hear her sigh of relief. “Thank God. It’s too early to be bailing someone out of jail.” I hear the rustle of covers and I can imagine the tiny blonde burrowing back down into the obscenely thick goose down comforter that covers her bed.

“I wouldn’t call so early if it weren’t important, but . . . I hired someone to find the Colonel. And I’m going with him.” I brace myself for her outburst, but it never comes.

Miran knows my father, which is why he sent me here when I had to leave Treeborn. Without giving me a single detail about their relationship, he gave me her phone number and address and told me that he trusted her, then he sent me on my way. But trust works like that for the Colonel. He trusts sparingly, yet when he does, it means something. In fact, it means everything. That’s how I trust him. Implicitly. Without question or hesitation. And that’s how I now trust Miran.

She doesn’t know everything that happened, and she’s never tried to find out. She just took me in because the Colonel asked her to. End of story. But she knows enough to realize that going back to South Carolina is not something I should be doing. My father would kill me and she knows it. Yet she hasn’t said a word.

The line is so quiet, I wonder if she’s hung up or fallen back to sleep. “Miran? Are you there?”

“You know he’ll be furious.”

“Yes.”

“And you know he’d expect me to stop you.”

“Yes.”

“But I won’t because I love him, too. And if he were my father, I’d do the same thing.”

I smile. I have no doubts she would. Miran is the type who would fight to the death for those she loves. And she’d fight dirty, too. She might be little, but what she lacks in stature she more than makes up for in ferocity. Obviously, she and her daughter are polar opposites. Melanie is two steps up from a slug.

“I appreciate that.”

“Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything,” I respond. And I mean it. In the short time I’ve known her, Miran has become a bit of a mother figure to me and there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for her.

“Be careful. If something doesn’t feel right, turn tail and haul ass. I know some people. If it gets ugly, you call me.”

I know some people. I shudder to think what kind of people she’d send to help me, people fiercer than she is.

“Okay. I will.” I have no idea how she (or the people she knows) could help me if I get into trouble two thousand miles away, but if it makes her feel better . . .

“Who did you hire, by the way? To find him, I mean. A private investigator or something?”

“No. Actually he’s a bounty hunter. I guess he does stuff like this on the side. He’s a friend of a friend.”

“What’s his name?”

I roll my eyes as I grab my charger from the dresser drawer in my bedroom. Miran thinks she knows everybody. Or at least that she knows everybody worth knowing.

“Jasper King.”

“J—” She barely utters the consonant before she stops abruptly. I hear more rustling followed by Miran’s low voice. “Keep your guard up, Muse, you hear me?”