“No, I blocked the bitch’s number,” Harper replied. “I don’t work for her anymore. I kept the messages, though.”
“Can you play them for me?” Woody asked.
“Sure.”
Harper pulled out her phone. “I haven’t even listened to the most recent ones. She’s like a broken record.”
What followed was a slew of voice mail messages, each one worse than the last. It was like hearing someone lose their grip bit by bit. They started out with the woman telling Harp how disappointed she was, then she was angry, then she was livid, then Harper was a bitch who didn’t appreciate the opportunities that she’d been given, then she was a cunt for not answering her phone, then she should watch her back because she couldn’t just ignore people and treat them like they were nothing and not expect retaliation.
Harper was pale by the time we’d finished going through them.
“I didn’t listen to the last ones,” she said, almost apologetically. “I didn’t know she’d gone so far off the ledge.”
“I think we have enough to assume that Paige Brewer was the one who put out the contract,” Woody said grimly.
“No shit,” Grease scoffed. “Crazy bitch.”
Woody nodded. “Now we need to decide how we’re gonna handle it.”
Chapter 16
Harper
Ileft UncleWoody’s office completely stunned.
I’d always had a good working relationship with Paige. Up until that last day, we’d gotten along great. Never any friction, never any problems. I’d just assumed that I’d put her in an uncomfortable position when I’d walked out on the job I’d been contracted for, and that’s why she’d been so pissed.
There was no way that I could’ve ever imagined that she’d go completely round the bend with me as her target.
As soon as Uncle Woody mentioned next steps, Uncle Grease and my dad ushered me back to the car. Even Bas was surprisingly reticent when I’d asked him how the hell they’d convince Paige to cancel the contract.
Uncle Woody’s guy had found it—the contract. One hundred thousand dollars to make it look like I died in an accident. She’d even provided my work ID photo.
Now, I was back at the clubhouse, and I’d been playing cards with Nova and Grandma Brenna for nearly an hour. I was pretty sure Nova had taken time off work just to hang with me. The noise in the room was a steady hum as members and wives moved in and out, sometimes walking over to check on me and sometimes just waving from across the room.
No one had brought their kids. They wanted to make sure I was okay, but until the whole contract-on-my-life thing was over, I was pretty much radioactive.
It made me sick to think about how long that guy had been following me. Probably for days, but definitely the night I’d goneto Ariel’s birthday party. There had been, like, ten kids there, from babies to pre-teens. The realization that they could’ve been caught in the crossfire the way Gram had made me crazy if I thought about it for too long.
For the last fifteen minutes, Bas had been in church with the rest of the voting members of the club. It didn’t take much thought to know what they were discussing. Part of me was glad that they wouldn’t tell me what happened next, because I didn’t really want to know. But the other part of me was dying of morbid curiosity.
“You suck at this game,” Nova announced, pulling all the cards off the table to shuffle them. “Are you even paying attention?”
“Barely,” I replied as Grandma Brenna laughed.
She reached out and patted my knee. “Sometimes, it’s infuriating when they won’t tell us things. Most times? It’s a blessing.”
“Doesn’t it drive you crazy?” I asked.
“Once upon a time,” she said with a smile. “Until I realized that it would be a lot easier on them if they could drop it all at our feet and let us carry some of the burden. Choosing not to do that is an act of devotion—don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.”
My mother had said something similar to me when I was a kid, but I hadn’t really understood it then. Parents were supposed to carry the weight—that was their responsibility. Now that it was my partner—the person I wanted to share everything with—that dynamic was completely different. I wished that Bas could tell me anything that was on his mind, but I also knew from the moment I’d leaned down to kiss him the first time that would never be possible for us. I’d learn to live with it.
Sometime later, the guys were still holed up in their little room when my mom wandered over and set her hands on my shoulders. I’d lost about five games of cards.
“Hey, Ma,” I said, leaning my head back against her stomach. “Whatcha doing?”
“I ordered some dinner,” she replied, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “Hopefully everyone likes Chinese food, because they’re bringing a metric ton of it.”
