Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Your mom stole your car.”
It was a statement, not a question, so I remained quiet.
“My mom steals from me every time she comes into town,” I grumbled darkly. “Why do you think that I live where I live? There’s nothing for her to steal, so she leaves faster. It was my mistake for getting such a nice car, though. I should’ve known she’d see that as an instant payday.”
There was a long moment of silence and then, “I thought your mother was dead.”
Again, another statement.
So I remained silent.
“You have to talk to me here. I can’t help if I don’t know the backstory,” he said. “Sunny can look your mother up in the system. I can’t do that unless I pay someone to do it for me. Which I’d rather not do if I had the actual source material sitting right in front of me.”
I grumbled darkly under my breath, then said, “My dad dying triggered a decline in my mom. At first, she tried to cope, then slowly but surely, she started to drift away. She started to turn into someone I didn’t know. I can’t really tell you anything more than just that. She declined. Started doing drugs. And from there, she pawned everything of value and left me to fend for myself.”
Which I’d been doing for years.
“Every once in a while, she comes back around, asks and begs for a place to stay. I give it to her, and the next morning, my most valuable possessions are gone.”
“Like your car,” he mused. “Why didn’t you just tell me it was stolen? Or the police?”
Because I felt guilty that she had to see the love of her life split literally in half and die before her eyes.
“What exactly were you going to do?” I asked. “I knew eventually they’d call me and tell me that she tried to pawn my car. Then I’d be able to drive there and go get it.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” he admitted. “That’s insane.”
“That’s my life,” I countered, suddenly angry.
I was so far beyond angry, in fact, that I lashed out.
“Why do you even care?” I asked. “This has been going on for as long as you’ve known me. Let me tell you something, buddy. You can keep ignoring me and acting like I’m the biggest pain in the ass of your life. I’ll survive this just like I’ll survive everything else.”
He sighed. “You’re Sara’s friend. She would never forgive me if I just let you out of here without trying to help.”
“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” I responded.
Meaning, butt the hell out of my business, keep your trap closed when it came to our friend, and we’d be all right.
“How are you going to keep something like this away from her?” he returned. “There’s no way in hell this isn’t going to spread through Accident like wildfire. A dead body is a big deal,” he explained.
“I’ll explain it as he was found dead. She’ll assume it’s from old age.” I shrugged. “Sara lives with her head in the clouds. She’s a stranger to anything bad. She’ll hear the gossip that he died. You’re right. There’s no way around that. But she’ll also believe that he died of natural causes if she doesn’t hear otherwise from me or you.”
“And what are you going to do with yourself?” he asked. “Are you going to go home and hide and never come out? You and Sara are attached at the hip. They’re going to come up to you and ask you what the hell happened.”
“I’ll find a new job. I’ll keep inside with Sara for a while.” I rolled my eyes. “Why?”
Where the hell was he going with this?
“Honey, your boss was murdered,” Sunny pointed out gently as he came back into the room. “We’re not saying that you’re involved in any way, but right now it’s better to play it the safe way. You need to watch out for yourself and Sara. Avoid being alone for a while just until we can figure out what happened and why.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll stay with Sara.”
“You are not staying with Sara,” Davis snapped. “That’s how you get other fuckin’ people killed.”
I blinked.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
So I must really be missing something here.
“It’s unsafe to stay by yourself. What if this person was actually after you?” he challenged. “You being by yourself makes it nice and easy for him to come over there and take care of you in the middle of the night. And your house is a run-down heap of wood bones just waiting for the next hurricane to blow it away.”
He had a point.
“You’re either going to stay with me or in a safe house, no excuses,” he argued.
“I’ll stay by myself,” I disagreed.
I didn’t do other people’s houses or a house that wasn’t familiar to me.