Page 149 of You Found Me
“You can always be Lucy.” Annie’s voice was matter-of-fact and also kind. “You can be whoever you want to be.”
A car full of people Della thought she recognized zipped by.The high school boys, she thought. Her first table. Would they notice she was gone?
“This op won’t last forever,” Annie said. She glanced to the left and right, then made a turn onto the main road out of town. “When we get this guy and things blow over, try it again with Ward. He’s not the guy he just pretended to be.”
“Yes. He is. He’s not the type to fake anything.” Della laid her head back, closed her eyes, and tried hard not to picture the apple festival, the cider booth, and Ward with his arms around her. She was so tired. So very tired. She crossed her arms over her belly and curled in on herself. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I wanted something real so badly I couldn’t see…what wasn’t…it doesn’t matter.”
“His loss,” Greg muttered.
“No. It’s mine,” she whispered to the window.
She wanted to go home. She wanted to crawl into bed and stay there until her heart stopped aching.
Except she didn’t have a home anymore. She’d sold her penthouse in New York, but even if she hadn’t, it wasn’t what she pictured when she thought of home.
What she pictured was Wires Crossing.
Wasn’t that ironic.
This town, and Ward’s house, had felt more like home than anywhere she’d ever lived except for that silly RV they used to travel in when she was a kid.
And that thing had died a long time ago.
“Brace!” Annie’s shout came a heartbeat before something slammed into the SUV and the world spun.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Afoghorn blared through the kitchen, driving Ward to his feet. He was moving before he saw that his phone flared with angry red warning.
“What the hell is that?” Brick said through the earpiece.
“Truck. Now!” Ward shouted back.
He pounded down the hallway, wrenched open the front door, and hit the driveway at a run.
Brick stormed in from the side of the lawn where he’d been hiding in the bushes, waiting for the asshole who never came. For a large man, he moved surprisingly fast. They fell into lock step halfway down the driveway. “What happened?”
“Della hit the panic button.” He was in his truck with the engine started before he forced himself to slow down and look at the alert’s map.
She’d triggered the alert just south of the bridge.
His gut clenched. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Spencer — Tracker’s activated. Annie’s cell signal is offline. Checking Diggs.
Ward put the truck in gear.
“Where we headed?” Brick asked.
“The bridge.” Ward tossed his phone to Brick. “Watch for texts.”
His phone dinged as he pulled onto the street.
“Uh, some guy named Spencer says Diggs’s phone is online, but not moving, and nobody is picking up. Della’s tracker remains in proximity to Diggs. What’s that mean?”
Ward took the next corner a little too fast. “Not sure yet.” Then he pushed it through the next light, which was well past yellow.
“Hey, try to get us there in one piece,” Brick said. “You’re no good to her dead, yeah?”