The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,117
he’d barely slept there the night before. It didn’t even smell like sex, even though we’d used that bed. Like all motel sheets, it smelled like bleach.
I unzipped the pocket and took out our phones. Dirk’s I stuck in my back pocket, still powered off. I turned mine on and waited for it to catch up. A few texts: Julia at the restaurant, a few people I sold to, Toby, who said, You didn’t go and do something stupid did you, Red? There were voicemails from Emma and Mom’s doctor, but I didn’t listen to them.
When I looked at Gentry’s phone, I almost cried. His home screen picture was of him and Trang and Edrard in armor. He was so trusting he didn’t even have a passcode to keep anyone out. There were two missed calls, both from his parents’ house the night before, and texts from Trang and Carlees, checking on him.
I left those, but I deleted his text threads with Rhys and Edrard. I knew the cops could find out when texts were sent, but maybe not what was in them, and the texts with Rhys and Edrard had just a little too much information. Even in Gentry’s phone I was Lady Zhorzha Trego, and I didn’t only delete the text thread between us, I deleted myself.
I knew I ought to call Charlene—I owed her that—but when I scrolled through RECENT CALLS, it was Carlees’ number that I hit. Carlees, who had smoked pot with Gentry when they were teenagers. Carlees, whose last text to Gentry was Bruh how mad is Mom?
The shower was still running when Carlees answered, and even knowing that Rhys could interrupt me at any time, I did what I had to do.
“Hey, Gee, you—”
“Carlees?” I cut him off before he could say anything else. “My name is Zhorzha Trego. I don’t know if Gentry told you about me.”
“Oh yeah! Lady Zhorzha, it’s good to talk to you. Is everything okay with my baby brother?”
“I don’t think so.” Then I told the lie I would have to tell to anyone who was willing to hear it. I said, “I think Gentry’s done something dangerous, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re for real? Did he get himself hurt in a joust again?”
“No, it’s a lot worse than that. He was supposed to be back by now, but he isn’t. He’s been gone all night.”
“Well, sometimes he goes out in the woods to be alone,” Carlees said. He sounded less worried than when he thought it was a joust.
“I think he went to try to make a deal with some very dangerous people down in Arkansas, and I don’t know what happened.”
“Oh, shit. That’s was what he was talking about.” For a second I thought the lie was already dead in the water. Maybe I’d been stupid to think it would ever work. “He said he was maybe going to get your sister back. I thought he was just talking, you know. I thought he meant he wanted to, not that he was going to.”
I kept it vague, because I couldn’t tell Carlees where Gentry got the information about Barnwell and Ligett. I couldn’t tell him I’d had anything to do with planning it.
“The only thing I know is that he went to Arkansas. Somewhere in Little River County. He wouldn’t let me go with him,” I said. I was a pretty good liar, but that sounded flimsy as hell to me.
“Jesus. Yeah. He’d want to protect you. And he was supposed to come back this morning?”
“I thought he’d be back hours ago, and I don’t know what to do. I’m in Missouri right now. I was going to call the police down there or hospitals, but since I’m not family, I wasn’t sure they would tell me anything.”
“No, it’s good you called me and not our mom. I’ll call the sheriff down there and see what I can find out. I’ll let you know what I hear,” Carlees said.
“Okay, thank you.” I knew I wasn’t going to hear from Carlees again, and I didn’t think I could stand to. He wouldn’t be so nice once he knew what had happened.
I was sitting there, looking at Edrard’s phone, when the bathroom door opened and a woman said, “What the—who—uh, Rick?”
I stood up and turned around, just as Rhys came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. The woman was in a towel, too, with another wrapped around her hair.