Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Elana’s eyes twitch as she studies all of us again. “Just a moment.” She sits in her chair, picking up a corded cream phone from the receiver and punching numbers into the base. She cuts her eyes at all three of us again with a suspicious onceover, then says into the phone, “Do you have a list of approved relatives for Phil Patterson?” She pauses. “There is a young woman here named Faye saying she’s his cousin, but I don’t recall him ever having visitors.”
Oh, fuck.
I stare at the back of Faye’s head, hoping she’ll turn to look at me so we can get the hell out of here. Clearly, this woman knows we aren’t family and are wasting her time. But Faye doesn’t break. She continues looking at the woman with a confident smile. Caz shifts on his feet, peering around the lobby with unease. I bet he’s wishing he had his gun.
The woman’s eyes round as she lowers her gaze. “Oh—uh, really? Are you sure? All right. I’ll send them back.” Elana hangs up the phone then pastes on a smile as she gestures to the sign-in sheet on the counter. “Please sign in and I’ll show you the way.”
Wait…what?!
When we’re signed in and past security, Elana meets us on the other side. It’s clear she’s not satisfied with Faye seemingly telling the truth by the smile she wears that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“How did you just do that?” I whisper to Faye.
“Remember Kaiden?”
“The guy who hacked into your Instagram account?”
“Yeah, well, he owed me a favor—the jackass. I may or may not have asked him to hack into the files here to put my name on Phil’s visitor list. He said it was pretty easy, actually.”
My eyebrows are nearly touching my forehead. “Shit.”
“See?” She smirks. “I’m not completely useless.”
“A professional liar though, I see,” Caz mumbles next to me.
Faye cuts her eyes at him with stitched brows.
Elana approaches a white door, swiping her badge across a black box to unlock it. She holds the door open for us, and we step into a bright room that smells like bleach and Pine-Sol. The walls are painted a pale shade of green, and ahead is a floor-to-ceiling window revealing the ocean and a miniature black and white lighthouse in the distance. There can’t be any more than four or five tables centered throughout the room, each with two or three plastic, blocky seats beneath them. A single green leather sofa is against the far-right wall, shining heavily beneath the lights like it’s been wiped cleaned more than once today.
This room is spotless, yet nothing about it is welcoming. There are no portraits on the walls, no TVs (which makes sense), not even any flowers to show a little cheerfulness. It’s all so empty and lifeless.
“We’ve let Phil know you’re here. Security will be bringing him along. For your safety and Phil’s, we lock the door from the outside, but when you’re ready to go, just push the buzzer right here—” She taps at a black box on the wall— “and someone will let you out.” Elana holds steady for a moment, eyeing each of us again, then she huffs before leaving the room. When she’s gone, her heels click-clacking in the distance, I take a look around with a relieved sigh.
“For your information, Caz, I’m not a liar,” Faye blurts out when Caz approaches one of the windows. “What I did back there was a white lie, which helped us, by the way.”
“If that’s what you believe, so be it,” Caz says.
“Why do you even care?” she hisses. “I may have lied, but you’re violent. You kill people for a living.”
Caz frowns over his shoulder. “Are those more lies you feed yourself to feel better?
“Jesus Christ.” Frustrated, Faye slips out of her pink teddy coat and sits on one of the plastic chairs. I’m glad she stops arguing because I can’t stand the bickering. They’ve been taking verbal jabs at each other since the car ride started. Faye, though she was rooting for Garrett’s demise, clearly isn’t pleased about Caz’s rash decision or leaving me stranded in the parking lot. And Caz is just…well, Caz. He doesn’t like anyone outside his clan.
“You put her in danger,” Faye had argued during the drive. “Someone could’ve blamed her for what you did! What if someone saw you stuff him in your trunk?”
“No one saw us,” Caz shot back.
Their arguing went on and on for thirty minutes—on and off. They kept talking about what was good for me, what I needed, what worse could have been done, until I told them both to kindly shut the hell up. To my luck, Faye shoved her AirPods into her ears to tune everything out, and Caz huffed and grumbled about how he’d do it again as he stared out the window.