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Tee’s teeth chattered so hard, she bit her tongue when she tried to speak. Lia wasn’t much better.
“Oh God.” Lia looked around, stamping her feet, and flapping her arms for warmth. “What do we do?”
“Don’t move so much. You’ll use too much oxygen.” Tee’s nose ran, then froze as she inhaled the icy atmosphere. Her nose hairs crackled. “Then again, we’ll be unconscious before we freeze to death.”
“Not funny.” Lia looked around. “We need a shelter to conserve body heat. The plastic works.” She used the box cutter to rip free the curtain barrier of heavy plastic. Designed to keep cold in, it would just as easily contain their body heat.
“Good idea. Boxes build a scaffolding for plastic over top. Plus, we need something to sit on so our butts don’t freeze to the floor.” Snuggled together in the tiny space, their body warmth would keep them from freezing the same way an igloo made of snow became toasty with enough bodies inside.
In theory, anyway.
They hunkered side by side beneath the flimsy plastic canopy. Tee folded her legs and pulled Lia’s borrowed jacket over top of her knees. The pair hugged each other, not out of affection, but necessity. As long as their teeth chattered and shivers shook them, they were good. No shivers signaled severe hypothermia and impending loss of consciousness. “Let’s hope Combs is smart enough to track my phone. I put it inside Karma’s lamb.”
“Of course!” Lia pulled the phone from the coat pocket with a “eureka” flourish.
“Great! Don’t suppose you have my gun, too?” Tee dialed Combs.
Lia shook her head. “I used up all the bullets but didn’t hit anything. Sorry.”
Tee glared at the phone when nothing happened. “Shit, it’s out of juice.” She dropped it with disgust. “Had it muted so a call wouldn’t give me away. Must have left it on auto-answer by mistake.”
“Huh? Auto-answer, you mean like blue tooth?”
“No, it’s a setting for hands-off automatic answering. I use it when I run.” The plastic crackled when her shoulder bumped it, and she shifted away from its icy surface. “Somebody must have called. It answered but didn’t hang up and that ran down the battery.
Lia looked stricken.
“What. Oh, don’t tell me, YOU called?”
“What was I supposed to do? You ran off without a word, took my car and my pregnant dog with you. So yes, I called. And I heard Karma barking her head off and a bunch of roosters crowing.” Her arms loosened, as if she might flounce off.
Tee tightened her grip. “Don’t you dare leave. We can’t survive alone.” She sighed. “They can still find us if they started the tracking procedure early enough. We’ll just have to put up with each other.”
“Until we pass out, right?” Lia loosened her hair tie, so her tresses spilled down both sides of her face and covered her neck. “I can’t feel my ears.”
Tee grimaced. “Don’t suppose you messaged the police? We’ve been running an investigation into cockfighting, coordinating with several PDs in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. Bet it’s all tied together.”
Lia glared. “I wanted to do more than message the police. I wanted to report my stolen dog. Before I could, I got grabbed, too. And it’s your fault.” Her lip stuck out, making her look all of twelve. “And it’s your fault Karma is out there, maybe hurt by that maniac, instead of home having her babies. Wish I’d never met you!”
“What are you talking about?” Tee stiffened. She always poisoned relationships. Something tainted in her spoiled things sooner or later. She’d kept Lia at arm’s length, not needing one more person in her life she’d disappoint, or the hurt sure to follow when the relationship ended. Tee’s relationships always ended.
“I heard Boss talking. You had to run off half-cocked without calling Combs or even telling me. You thought your plan would catch ’em and make you a hero.” Lia’s shivers combined with angry shaking, her breath panted, and Tee could feel her sister’s heartbeat go from canter to gallop. “All the time, somebody knew all about you, and made a deal to get rid of you. And me, too, because—oh happy day—Wyatt Teves is my dad, too.”
Tee had left Hawaii in part to distance herself from a bad situation. Now its tentacles reached clear across an ocean into Texas. “Wyatt’s in prison for his part in killing a very bad man named Simon Wong.” She’d heard rumors Mrs. Wong took over the Island Mafia after her husband’s death. And she held grudges. “We didn’t tell anyone about us, that we’re half-sisters.”
“While you were out running around with Karma, I got a Skype call from our father.” Lia whispered the admission. “I confronted my grandparents. They wanted to give me up for adoption, can you believe it?”
“There are worse things.” Tee pinched herself hard to keep focused. “Auntie Isabella adopted me. She saved me. You don’t know how good you have it, girl.”
Lia scrubbed her face. “They lied to me for years.”
Tee rolled her eyes. “They lied for the right reasons, to protect you, yeah?” She yawned, getting sleepy. “There’s lies, and then there’s lies.” Like the way her memory lied to protect her from hurt. “Besides, whatever they say about Wyatt Teves, he’s worse.”
“At least he told me the truth!” Lia’s shivers had subsided, so perhaps their combined body warmth made the plastic atmosphere more livable. The tip of her sister’s nose had turned white, though, and Lia’s words slurred.
“Truth’s over-rated. Sometimes it’s better not to know.” Tee couldn’t feel her feet, or her nose or ears. Her eyes watered, and tears froze and turned to fairy dust when she blinked. Despite the cardboard seat, her butt tingled like it had gone to sleep. If she looked anything like Lia, Tee guessed most of her own extremities had taken on the ghostly pallor of chalk. She yawned again. She remembered the notecard she’d saved from therapy back in Chicago, a touchstone to keep her grounded: Trust Your Heart.
And trust the dog . . .
A nap would be nice. Yes, a nap. And a dream...dream of misty volcanic peaks, plumeria blossoms perfuming the air, surf lapping her ankles, toes digging into hot sand beaches, a special dog’s warm kisses on her cheeks . . .
