“No!” Leigh sobbed. “I can’t lose him. I can’t.”
Callie wadded up the note into a ball inside of her fist. Her knee cracked as she knelt down beside her sister. She pressed her palm to Leigh’s back. She let the agony roll unabated because there was no other choice. After a lifetime of Callie only looking at what was directly in front of her, she had suddenly found herself charmed with the ability to look ahead.
“What are we going to do?” Leigh cried. “Oh, God, Callie. What are we going to do?”
“What we should’ve done before.” Callie pulled at Leigh’s shoulders, making her sit up. This was how it worked. Only one of them could fall apart at a time. “Harleigh, get your shit together. You can freak out later when Walter is okay.”
Leigh wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. She was trembling. “I can’t lose him, Callie. I can’t.”
“You’re not going to lose anyone,” Callie said. “We’re going to Andrew’s house right now and we’re going to end this.”
“What?” Leigh started shaking her head. “We can’t just—”
“Listen to me.” Callie tightened her hands around Leigh’s shoulders. “We’ll go to Andrew’s. We’ll do what we have to do to get Walter back. We’ll find a way to open that safe. We’ll get the tapes and we’ll leave.”
“I …” Leigh seemed to regain some of her usual resolve. When lightning struck, she was always going to stand in Callie’s way. “I can’t take you into that. I won’t.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Callie knew how to ramp her panic back up. “Andrew has Walter. How long before he goes after Maddy?”
Leigh looked horrified . “He—I don’t—”
“Come on.” Callie made her stand. She stepped around the vomit. “We can figure out what we’re going to do on the way.”
“No.” Leigh was clearly struggling to regain her composure. She grabbed Callie’s hand, spun her around. “You can’t go with me.”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“You’re right,” Leigh said. “I have to do this alone, Cal. You know that.”
Callie chewed her lip. It was a testament to Leigh’s distress that she wasn’t seeing through this. “You can’t do this on your own. He’ll have a gun or—”
“I have a gun.” Leigh reached into her car. She found her purse. She took out the Glock she’d brandished at Trap and Diego outside the motel. “I’ll shoot him if I have to.”
Callie had no doubt that she meant it. “And I’m supposed to wait around here while you’re risking your life?”
“Take the money.” Leigh reached into her purse, this time to retrieve an envelope thick with cash. “You need to get out of town right now. I can’t fix this unless I know you’re safe.”
“How are you going to fix it?”
Leigh had a crazy look in her eyes. She was going to fix it by throwing more fuel onto the fire. “I need you to be safe.”
“I need you to be safe, too,” Callie argued. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re right. You’re not leaving me. I’m leaving you.” Leigh slapped the money into Callie’s hand. “This is between me and Andrew. You don’t have anything to do with it.”
“You’re not a criminal,” Callie said, reminding her sister of her own words. “You don’t know how to break into houses and threaten people and crack safes.”
“I’ll figure it out.” Leigh sounded determined. There was no arguing with her when she got this way. “Promise me you’ll be okay so that I can do what I should’ve done four days ago.”
“Turn yourself in?” Callie forced out a laugh. “Leigh, do you really think going to the cops right now will stop Andrew from doing what he’s going to do?”
“There’s only one way to stop him,” Leigh said. “I’m going to kill that twisted motherfucker the same way I killed his father.”
Callie watched Leigh walk around to the driver’s side of the car. In all of their years together, she had never seen her sister so relentlessly driven toward one thing. “Harleigh?”
Leigh turned. Her mouth was set. She was clearly expecting an argument.
Callie said, “What you told me about Buddy. There’s nothing to forgive. But if you need to hear it, I forgive you.”