“Nic… Veronica,” I say in a hoarse voice. “From the foundation.”
“Why?” he asks after a slight pause. “Didn’t you get a note from my lawyer or whatever?”
I clear my throat to get rid of the frog in it. “I did. I was just wondering if you’re alright.”
“Why?” he asks again and leaves it at that this time.
“The note said you were in some kind of accident, that you had to get stitches…” I say, rambling on.
“No, I’m not fine,” he says curtly as my voice trails off. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
My sister is looking at me with very wide eyes, mouthing, “Ask him about Harper”, at me.
I clear my throat again. “I’m also calling because, well, my sister is one of Harper’s biggest fans, and I was… ummm… I was wondering if you could ask her for an autograph. Seeing as you’re her friend.”
Ariel rolls her eyes at me, and the silence from Chance is icy. I didn’t hear the line disconnect, but I feel like it had.
“Harper’s in no state to be giving autographs,” he finally says. “But after this, sure, maybe, I don’t know.”
Now, what is that supposed to mean?
“After what?” I ask harshly. “Did something happen to her? She’s not online.”
I hear him inhale sharply and then the silence goes icy again.
I think I hear a door open and close through the line and a second later he hisses into the phone. “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Veronica. Don’t call me again.”
And this time the line does disconnect with a loud gong-like sound that I think is just in my head. Ariel is looking at me with wide, expectant eyes. She doesn’t know he’s hung up on me.
“So Harper is fine?” I ask. “You swear to it.”
I pretend to wait for a yes from him, then take the phone off my ear.
“He hung up,” I tell Ariel. “But he’s with Harper now and she’s fine.”
I hate lying to my sister, but I hate seeing her worried and anxious more.
“And you believe him?” she asks.
“He put her on the phone for a second, just to say hi and she did.”
I’m usually the worst liar in the world, but this is a lie my sister really wants to believe. She sighs in relief and her face visibly relaxes.
“So I was just overreacting,” she says. “Good.”
She looks down at the screen of her phone and yelps.
“Oh, shit, Mom and Dad are coming back at seven and I said I’d have dinner ready,” she says. “Do you want to come too?”
A family dinner is something I almost never attend, and that’s not changing tonight, not after a day like today.
“I have some work to finish,” I tell her and she’s so used to me not coming over when mom and dad are home, she barely flinches.
She just gives me a quick hug and rushes through the door.
And I spend the next half an hour trying to compose myself for Trixie’s arrival. It’s not easy and the main reason for that is that I’m having trouble getting Chance’s angry voice out of my head. It seems to be growing louder instead of fading.
He said she will be fine again after something. After what? I can’t get that question out of my mind.
But he wouldn’t say that if he was trying to hide that he did something to her. Would he?
Over the weekend, I already managed to convince myself that he was telling the truth about being a friend of Harper’s. I even scrolled through her Instagram feed and found the picture of them together. It’s from about a month ago, so he’s probably telling the truth. Most likely.
Six o’clock comes and Trixie doesn’t. She’s not here by seven either.
I was planning on spending the night editing the latest video and I get started on that at eight, when I finally start to feel like myself again.
It’s probably for the best if Trixie doesn’t show up at all. As much as I want to find whoever abducted Ariel, I’m pretty sure Chance is my ticket in, not Trixie and her shaky reasons for offering to sell me the information. Plus, she did warn me herself not to trust her. I should just take her at her word.