Free Whisper of Memory (Whispering Woods Book 2) by Brinda Berry

of his eyes. “We need to find out what’s in Goliath. Sounds like a road trip to me.”
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    T he cell phone is my pocket vibrated, startling me out of the trancelike state I had adopted while waiting for Regulus and Arizona to return. I rubbed my eyes tiredly and wished for a large cappuccino. I removed the phone from my jacket pocket to see the caller ID on the display.
    “Hi, Em. How did you know something was going on?”
    The voice on the other end sounded tired and a little grumpy. “Austin sent me a text. My phone is set to sound on those, so it woke me.”
    “Sorry.” I scanned the woods to see Austin pacing around the tree. “What did he text?” I asked.
    “He wants me to research the town of Goliath. Does he know what time it is?” She hesitated for a moment and then said, “What’s he doing with you in the middle of the night?”
    Em could ask that kind of question. She knew how I felt about Regulus.
    “A guy broke into my house through my bedroom window.”
    “No! You at the police station or something?”
    “I’m in the woods with Austin guarding the guy.” I was sorry the minute I told her that part. Not because we didn’t tell each other almost everything, but this would be a hard situation to explain. I tried to summarize and failed miserably when every detail lead to more explanation.
    “Give me the phone, please.” Austin held out his hand. He had most likely gotten tired of listening to me retell the events of the night.
    Lacking the energy to argue, I rolled my eyes and handed him the phone. The wind blew through the trees, and I closed the gap in the front of my jacket. My teeth began to click together before I could stop them. I moved to sit near a bush that would shield me from the wind. I studied our prisoner, who hadn’t moved since he had answered Austin’s questions.
    “Yeah, yeah. Can you look it up?” He paused and grimaced while holding the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Please?”
    I smiled because I knew that Em was giving him heck for waking her. I also knew that she wished that she could be with us, which made her crankier. When you have a mom like Em’s, you’re lucky to leave the house in daylight hours. The house would have to be on fire to leave after 10:00 p.m.
    Fifteen minutes later, Austin’s cell phone sounded with the beat of some heavy metal song that I didn’t recognize. Before Regulus had come along, my cell phone would mysteriously chime with new ringtones every few days. I never knew how Austin snuck them onto my phone, and although I acted irritated that he had done it, it always amused me.
    “Yeah… Uh-huh.” Austin turned his back to me, and I rose to get closer to the conversation. “What else?” he asked.
    I tugged on the back of his leather jacket. “What’s she saying?”
    “Just a minute,” Austin said into the phone. He punched at the display and held it off in front of his mouth this time. “Go ahead. You’re on speaker.”
    “You there, Mia?”
    “Hey Em. Sorry we woke you up.”
    “It’s OK. Better to be woken up by Austin than by somebody crashing through my window.”
    I laughed. “It’s about the same.”
    “Here’s what I found on Goliath. It’s a bump in the road down in south Arkansas. Small population. Why do you want to know about it?”
    “The guy who broke into my house said he was supposed to take me there. Great to know he was going to drag me to a place even smaller than Whispering Woods.”
    “Weird. He was going to kidnap you?” Em didn’t sound too surprised. My life had jumped to an entirely different level from what could be considered normal.
    “I guess,” I said. “That doesn’t tell us a thing.”
    “Anything else, Em?” Austin sounded as perplexed as I did.
    “Let me go back to my search page.” The click of keys sounded. “Wait a minute.” Excitement came across the distance loud and clear. “Sorry, guys. I looked it up only on the maps section earlier. This is very