Page 23 of Release

“Close the door.”

Tyson hesitates, fear now entering his voice. “Why?”

“Just…please.”

Five minutes later, he’s softly crying, and I’m trying to console him. “I…I’ll meet you at the airport. Wait…” He sobs. “I don’t have a passport.”

“That’s okay. You’ll need to fly to Alaska to be with the kids and get them home. Don’t let them talk to the press. I’ll have Chase fly directly from there and meet me in Manila.” I know Chase has a passport. He just returned from a business trip to France last month.

“O-okay.”

“I’m going to try to call the kids and Chase now. Either Chase, Declan, or I will call you back with details. Don’t speak to the press,please. Refer them to Declan.”

“Okay.” He sniffles. “Do you…do you think they survived?”

I swallow back more bile. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to lie to you.”

Once I’m off that call, I make the next, which I know will be even worse.

Chase picks up. “Hey, sweetie. What’s up?”

We’re friends, and I know he’d like more than that with me. But since I don’t shit where I eat, I’ve always resisted giving in to the easy temptationthatwould be. Besides, I have Declan, even if no one else besides Ellen knows it.

And Chase looks so much like his older brother it’d be too…weird. Seriously, it would. Before I had Declan, Ellen used to try to play matchmaker between the two of us, but even then, I couldn’t. The sad thing is I can see how much Chase is attracted to me. How easy it’d be to make him mine, if I wanted to.

Chase is also an attorney. “I need you to go somewhere private,” I gently say. “Right now.”

“Why?” But I hear him moving, background noises fading.

“Just…please.”

His voice drops. “What happened? Is it Tyson?” Their youngest brother has never married, and his two older brothers have always worried a little about him being alone.

I hear a door quietly shut. “What happened?” he asks again.

I tell him.

Five minutes later I can hear from his voice he’s gutted. “I’ll book Tyson’s ticket when we get off the phone. Should I fly to LAX, or out to Manila?”

“Manila. Let Tyson handle booking himself and the kids back to Nashville,” I tell him. “Do you want me to tell the kids myself?”

“No. No, I’ll do it.” He wearily sighs. “Fuck. They’re probably dead, aren’t they?”

I donotwant to admit this, but I know he can handle it. “Probably, yeah. Don’t get their hopes up.”

“Goddammit.” He sniffles. “Okay. Let me go tell them right now. We were eating breakfast.”

“Please tell them I love them.”

“I will. Case?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for doing this.”

“I’m not going to let you face this alone, honey. We’re a family.”

“Love you.”