Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

“Yes, you are.” Daisy smiles with a glassy gaze. “You always are. I wouldn’t be able to handle any of this without you.” Her voice cracks.

It impales me, but I have to stay where I am.

Rose willingly and abruptly hugs Daisy. In the same instance, Daisy reciprocates tenfold.

Lo uncrosses his arms. “Looks like Connor still has superhuman sperm.”

“Actually,” Connor says, “it wasn’t an accident.”

I don’t know what I’m fucking feeling right now.

Connor trains his gaze on me. “We weren’t being as careful as we could have been.” He could have let me believe the entire ordeal was a fucking mistake. The honesty is nice, but I don’t thank him for it.

Air strains again, an uncomfortable fucking tension.

Connor continues, relieving some of it, “Daisy designed this entire scenario of Rose and her being pregnant at the same time under false pretenses.” He rotates to Daisy. “You want Rose pregnant too because you’re scared of hurting her if something catastrophic happens—if you die. You don’t want to cause your sister pain, so maybe this way, her own child will be a distraction if something were to happen to you.”

He doesn’t ask if he’s right. He already knows he is.

Before Daisy has a chance to explain, Rose reaches for her sister’s hands and squeezes. “I want you to know that I could never be happy if you died, not even if I had a baby to look forward to. I could never be okay with losing you.” She blinks back tears.

I tune out every time someone says death and Daisy in the same sentence. It’s white noise.

I don’t live in fear of the next step. I don’t prep for the what ifs and rewire the fucked-up variables like Connor.

I drop to my knees in front of the only girl I’ve ever loved. And I live in the fucking moment with her.

However short, however long we have.

I nod to Connor. “So you just ignored the fucking plan because you didn’t like the reasoning behind it?”

“Yes.” His word is final.

“It just seemed happy,” Daisy says, eyes clouding with tears again. I let out a heavy breath. Dais…

Connor doesn’t hesitate. “A world where there are five of us, instead of six, will never be a happy one.”

Rose rests her hands on Daisy’s shoulders, facing her completely. It’s hard to believe minutes ago Rose was facedown in a sink, distraught.

In this moment, she stands poised and fucking assertive. So unshaken that I forget something even rattled her to begin with. “I’m always leaving surrogacy as an option for you, Daisy. Always.” She pauses. “Maybe this shift in timeline will be for the best.” I think she’s trying to convince herself of this too. “By the time you learn if you can have a baby or not on your own, I could already have had mine, and I’ll be ready to be your surrogate.”

In that future, Daisy is infertile. Maybe it’ll come to that, but we’re not ready to give up this way yet.

Daisy nods. “I just want everyone to be happy.”

I cut in, “We all want you to be fucking happy, sweetheart.” That’s what this boils down to. She has to put herself first this time.

She smiles at me, tears falling down her cheeks. “I am and I will be.”

I head over to her.

“What’d we learn?” Connor asks, about to get on my fucking nerves.

Lily says strongly, “That none of us want Ryke and Daisy to die.” My pulse slows, and I nod to myself. I know.

“That flour cannot defeat me.” Rose lifts Janie from Connor and into her arms.

I raise my brows at Dais, and she begins to smile, not knowing what I’m about to do.

Lo adds, “That the Cobalts will never announce a goddamn pregnancy the way ordinary people do.”

Connor grins, and I practically hear him fucking say: ordinary is boring, darling.

I swiftly pick Daisy up by the waist and toss her over my shoulder. She laughs, her hands descending to the waistband of my pants.

“That Ryke has the best ass,” she says before squeezing my fucking ass.

The corners of my mouth curve, and right as I turn towards the bathroom door, a police officer slips inside. For a second, I’d actually forgotten about the skier.

The uniformed man sullenly shakes his head at us.

What I’ve learned: justice never comes easy.

DAISY CALLOWAY

Our holiday trip may not be completely ruined by the flour-bomber, but with Christmas Eve tomorrow, the mood has shifted. We’re all handling the second assault differently.

Connor and Rose have called the police repeatedly, mentally active in trying to hunt down the masked skier. Lily has hoarded herself in the rented cabin, reclaiming her long-forgotten hermit status. Lo has joined her, emotionally spent.

This was reason enough for Ryke and me to take a physical part in catching this guy.

So it begins.

Ryke and Daisy’s Grand & Daring Stakeout #1

“Send whatever you can over text. Yeah…” Ryke talks to our private investigator that we recently hired (unbeknownst to everyone else), and he’s been feeding us info about the attacker.

I skim the shelves of a rundown convenience store, empty except for the cashier and us. I gather candy bars, Honey Buns, beef jerky, and other stakeout provisions. I figure we might be passing a lot of time in our rented mini-van (not Ryke’s car of choice)—so I grab a stack of magazines, one of each on the rickety display.

With his cell to his ear, Ryke motions to me and then points at the drinks. “Right,” he says to the PI, dipping his head in concentration. His blue baseball cap conceals most of his face.

My disguise: a platinum blonde wig cut in a bob.

I run my fingers through the coarse strands, adrenaline already pumping with our new schemes. Ryke and Daisy on the road. Ryke and Daisy trap a dreadful, no-good guy. Ryke and Daisy save the day!

I like how silly it sounds. Like the tagline in a children’s adventure story.

My sisters think we’re spending the day on the slopes, so no one should question our whereabouts. Since we don’t trust Price yet, we told him that we’d be in bed all day. The bodyguards don’t stay inside our cabin, so he wouldn’t know otherwise.

In the store, I make my way to the cooler and balance a couple waters on the magazines. As I check out, Ryke says goodbye to the private investigator and pockets his phone.

“And?” I wonder.

“I’ll tell you in the car.” He looks hopeful.

The cashier rings us up, and Ryke fishes out a few bills, paying for our stuff. About a minute later, we settle into the silver mini-van, and Ryke drives towards…somewhere.

“Here’s the fucking deal.” Ryke blindly digs in one of the plastic bags on the middle console, ending up with a caramel and chocolate candy bar. “He has a lea

d on one guy, who was part of this disbanded social media forum…” Ryke tears open the candy bar, using his knee to keep the wheel straight for a second.

I frown. “What kind of forum?”

“He said the name changes. It used to be Callo-Haters but now it could be as plain as fucking Doorknob.” He takes a large bite of the candy bar, and I notice his right hand white-knuckling the steering wheel. I think the food helps distract his anger.

I lean back and extend my legs on the dashboard.

“He doesn’t fucking think the first flour-bombing on Lo is connected to this one,” Ryke explains. “The first one was an actual upset fan, but this one seemed like a copycat. On the group, people fucking talked about how it’d be funny to replicate what happened. So they’re exchanging info on where we are. Asking each other who’s in the area—all of that.” His eyes are dead set on the snowy road.

I set my hand on his leg. “We should know who did it then. Can’t the police just track down whoever owns the accounts?”

“It’s not that fucking easy. He said the IP addresses change constantly, and they keep switching where they go on the internet. A lot of them are…anonymous. It’s a platform meant to conceal identities.”

My spirit sinks. It sounds like catching a shadow.

Then I remember this all started with hope. “We have a lead on one guy though?”

“Yeah.” Ryke nods a couple times. “He connected a couple fucking things to this guy named James B. Allen.” That’s when he pulls the mini-van into a rundown Lazy Peak Motel and he parks beside an old sedan.

I straighten up, alert on the single row of chipped green motel doors.

He digs in his pocket and flashes me his phone. The picture is of James B. Allen. Mid-twenties, sandy blonde hair and chin stubble, and these metallic blue eyes. I study that gaze and try to place it to the one in my head.

It could be a match.

“So now we wait?” I ask him.

He nods. “We wait.”

Two hours later.

I flick the lock button on the door, the cramped car losing its entertainment value. Candy wrappers over the dashboard, legs crossed beneath my butt, and eyes glazed at the chipped green doors—only two guests have exited.