The Reckless Oath We Made(93)

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.

“Jesus Christ, Zee. I was seriously getting worried,” he said. Then he looked at the stuff I’d gathered up to pack. “Where are Gentry and Edrard?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t—” I had to take a deep breath, because I wasn’t ready for how big the lie needed to be. “They wouldn’t let me go. They left me in Murfreesboro. They left me there and they never came back.”

“What are you talking about? They left you?”

“They decided it was too dangerous. They didn’t want me to go. I was supposed to wait for them, but they didn’t come back.”

“God, if they were smart, they ditched you there and drove back to Wichita,” Rhys said. As shitty as that was, it was true. They should’ve done that. “How did you get back?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. They left me with Gentry’s truck, and the two of them went in Edrard’s truck, and they didn’t come back. I just called Gentry’s brother. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Wait, what about your cousin?”

“He stayed in Murfreesboro with me,” I said.

Rhys started pacing up and down, still in his towel, while the woman stared at him, then me, then him. I went back to packing.

“This is your fault,” he said. “This is all your fault.”

“I know. Of course, it’s my fault.”

“We need to call the police and tell them what kind of crazy-ass thing you talked Gentry and Edrard into.”

“Rick, do you think we should—”

“Will you shut up, Tiffany? I need to think.”

Tiffany winced, but instead of getting mad, she shuffled back to the bathroom and, after a minute, turned on the blow-dryer. I stuffed a few more things in Gentry’s bag and zipped it up.

“I’m calling the police.” Rhys picked up his phone off the dresser. “You can explain it to them.”

“Yeah, well, I hope you don’t mind getting arrested, because they’ll arrest you, too.”

“Why would they arrest me?”

“You were here when we planned it,” I said.

“I fucking was not!”

The hair dryer cut off and Tiffany said, “Rick, is everything okay?”

“Dry your goddamn hair, Tiff,” he said.

She turned the dryer back on, maybe just as white noise to drown us out.

“You planned it,” Rhys said. “And you and Gentry both told me not to call the police.”