I shook my head and tried not to let the disappointment or fear enter my voice. “Nothing so far, but I’m staying hopeful.”

Yvette and Eric came back into the room with drinks topped off. “Hopeful about what?” Yvette asked as she sat down, now with a plush gray blanket thrown over her legs.

“About the cops figuring out who the hell sent me that box.”

“Maybe we should Drew Barrymore this shit?” Tristan asked, looking around the room, which had suddenly fallen completely silent.

Yvette’s pencil-sharp eyebrows rose in unison. “You mean Nancy Drew this shit?”

“Whatever. Same Drew, different day,” Tristan said with a wave of his hand.

The entire crew started to bust out in laughter, Tristan included. That’s one of the things we loved about him. His grasp of the English language was the strongest out of all of us, considering he had a successful career as a reporter and an author, but sometimes a wire or two would get crossed, and he’d say the most off-the-wall thing, but what made it even funnier was the conviction he’d say it with.

“I do like where you were going with that,” Tia said when the laughter died down. She patted the corners of her eyes where a couple of tears had collected.

“Same,” Eric said. “I miss working cases sometimes.”

I shook my head, already thinking of about a dozen ways this could go wrong. “No, I don’t want anyone else getting dragged into this.”

Jake sat up, head cocked, eyes drilling through mine. “If it means figuring out who’s behind this, then I don’t care at all about being dragged in. I just want you safe.”

I swallowed, the gulp audible.

“Maybe we can set aside some time at the end of our meetings to toss around a couple of theories,” Jess suggested, moving her glasses so that they sat higher up her face, the tiny diamond stud glittering on her nose.

“Yeah, I’ll bring a whiteboard next time,” Eric offered. He looked the most excited out of all of us. “We can list out possible suspects along with potential motives, try to figure out any links we may be missing.”

It made my heart warm, even though the cool tendrils of anxiety clamping around my chest were trying hard to snuff that warmth out. I always felt loved and appreciated by my friends, but this just brought it up to an entirely new level. I wasn’t just looking around at friends; I was looking around at my family, each of them ready to do whatever it took to keep me safe.

It nearly brought tears to my eyes, but the emotional train of thought was abruptly derailed by a ringing cell phone, the couch underneath Jake and me beginning to vibrate.