Then my phone lit up the dash.
Jackson Memorial Hospital?
What the fuck?
CHAPTER 28
HARVEE
The dripping has become its own kind of torture.
He's been gone for hours. Long enough for the unfinished conversation to loop in my head until I've worn grooves in it. Long enough to hate how we left things, which is not a feeling I expected to have about the man who chained me to a couch.
His truck growls up outside and something moves through me that I don't want to look at directly.
The door opens.
"Hey," he says.
The tension walks in with him, thick and charged, settling between us like a third presence in the room.
"Hi," I say, and my voice comes out smaller than I mean it to.
"I'm sorry it took so long." His eyes go to my ankle cuff instead of my face. He fidgets with his thumbnail, worrying a rough edge, and that small involuntary tell gives him away more than anything he could say.
"It's fine."
"It's not." He exhales. "Nothing's fine right now."
"What do you mean?"
"Forget it."
"DJ—"
"Stop." The word cracks through the room and I flinch before I can catch myself. Then I glare.
"I just want to help."
"You can't, Goldilocks." His mouth twists into something humorless.
"Please." Softer than I intend. Almost begging.
He drops his head. The air goes out of him. "My mom's in the hospital. I just got the call. I think it's her medication, but I don't know anything yet."
The fight drains out of me completely. "Is she okay?"
"I don't know." He drags his fingers through his curls and leaves them a mess. "I'm scared."
The dripping counts time in the corner.
"Is she on Plex?" I ask quietly.
His eyes come up to mine. Then back down to his hands. "Yeah."
"Shit." My throat tightens. "My boss was just wrapping up a case about that drug."
"I know."