The line went dead.
I stared at my phone, the screen dark where Naomi's open call had been a second earlier, and every version of the worst outcome crowded into my head at once. Had he found the phone. Had he found her. Had that soft, deliberate sound been the last thing I'd ever hear from her.
I called back three times. Straight to voicemail, all three.
I sat frozen in my kitchen for what seemed like an hour, though the clock told me it had been twenty minutes at most, my phone gripped so hard my knuckles ached.
Then it rang.
"Naomi."
"I'm fine." Her voice came out steady, steadier than I expected given what I'd heard through a dead line. "He didn't take the phone from me. He was reaching for his own, on the table between us. I walked out of that room certain my heart had stopped, f
