I skim the rest of the email, which goes into more detail than my brain can probably handle, and then click on the link. There are about two pages of transactions dating back to when Saint Clare’s was opened. It doesn’t look too difficult, so I figure I can knock it out over coffee, and then hopefully, that will mean that we’re all caught up.

It hurts that Colin isn’t the one here doing it, and every day without him is another day of fear for where he is and relief that his body hasn’t been pulled from the Sound.

Yet.

I scroll down to his number and click on it, mostly habit, only a little bit hoping, and get the deadline straight away. There are so many things we need to talk about and didn’t get the time to. I’m almost mad at the way he’s abandoned me. Almost, but not actually, because I know something’s happened.

I’ve moved past hoping that he’ll show up after some extended vacation, and I know Dad and my stepmom are worried as well. All I can do is keep taking it one day at a time and maybe stop getting so fucking distracted by sweet eyes and what felt like a magnificent cock. I have to believe that somehow he’ll get us a name today and that the name is Yanni’s.

Then … well, fuck. I don’t know.

Lars made a great point that we could go to Yanni to trade him for Colin, but what then? And how do we trust that he’d keep his word anyway? I’m not exactly his favorite person.

The other alternative is to go to the police. Tell them about Perry. Tell them about Yanni hiring him, and then they can be the ones who get Colin back.

Both options throw Perry under the bus though, and I think, maybe, that Perry trusts me. He shouldn’t. He has to know that finding my brother comes first, but maybe that’s the reason he slept with me to begin with.

Maybe he’s trying to get under my skin. Trying to make me forget.

If he was even the slightest bit more calculating than he is, I might believe it.

I sigh and grab my mostly dry underwear, pull on my Seattle tourist T-shirt, and then finally leave my room. Voices are coming from down the hall, and when I get to the kitchen, Perry and Lars have beaten me. Perry’s sitting on a stool with an overfull bowl of overnight oats in front of him and my suit pants hung over the stool to his left.

“Morning,” I say, trying to ignore the way I want to look at him, to drink in every stretch of muscle under that too-small T-shirt.

Lars answers me first. “Morning. I called Brom and told him you’re working from home.”