“You’d have to be.”
He eyed me expectantly. Did he have his gun on him? Maybe I could put myself out of my misery.
“A half hour ago you despised me, thought I was a terrible influence, and wanted me out of Stacey’s life. Now you suddenly want my advice? Don’t you think that’s a) asinine, b) hypocritical as fuck, and c) ridiculous? Or is it just a pathetic attempt at sucking up? Also, why me?”
He grimaced. Unexpected humor lit his brown eyes. “I can count on you to be honest,” he said wryly. “I think Jen would make up lies just to get me in trouble.”
He was totally right about both of us. Maybe he was a better cop than I’d given him credit for.
“That doesn’t mean I want to help you, and anyway, you already know what you need to do. You just don’t want to.”
“And what’s that?” He took a swig from his bottle, never taking his eyes off me.
That skewering stare was getting annoying, but if he thought it would intimidate me, he had a lot to learn. I’d faced down the worst monster anybody could dream up, and while she’d broken me physically more times than I could count, she’d never made me submit mentally.
“Loosen the fuck up and get over your bad self. Take what you can get and be happy about it. Maybe it’ll last, and maybe it won’t, but at least you’ll have had a great ride while it lasts. You also might want to reevaluate the wisdom of crapping all over her best friends. Not exactly a winning strategy.”
He winced. “Sorry.”
“Say that again later when you don’t want something from me.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
I rolled my eyes. “You think?”
“Are you going to sabotage me with Stacey?”
“I thought we covered this; Stacey does what she wants to do.”
“But you’re her friend, and she listens to you—to all three of you.”
I laughed. “You’re wishing you’d been less of an ass, aren’t you?”
“More tactful, anyhow,” he agreed. He took a moment to consider his beer thoughtfully before taking a slow drink.
Because I knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth, I gave the answer he didn’t want to accept. “Magic.”
I flicked a little ball of light off my fingers. It looped around the top of his bottle before sliding down inside, where it continued to bounce around. “There’s some proof for you. If you want more, I’d be more than happy to turn your underwear into a swarm of cockroaches. Or spiders. Or potato bugs. Those things are creepy as fuck. Think about it. I’m going to go dance.”
I walked away.
ChapterSix
The whole planwent to hell in the blink of an eye. Not that I knew what the plan was, just that Stacey had one.
I’d followed Jen and Luke back to the table and was just sitting down when I got a text, and then four more. Each contained a picture of a ledger filled in with tiny, crabbed writing, the last ripped across the top. Frowning, I zoomed in to see better. My chest knotted as I started reading.
Each page contained fifty or sixty entries, though I couldn’t read them. They were in some kind of code with a lot of abbreviations and little pictures, like hieroglyphs. The expense and debit columns contained positive and negative numbers ranging from one to five, with a total recorded at the bottom. Someone had highlighted the headings of each page. They all said the same thing:Anne Wyatt: Business Exchanges Chronicled and Tabulated.
Anne Wyatt. Aunty Mommy. My aunt and the woman who’d kidnapped and tortured me most of my life.
“What the fuck?”
I scanned the pages again and checked the number they’d come from before typing out a response: who are you?
But even as I hit send, another text popped up:We found these. Lindsey woke up and says you need to come now. It’s important. You can do the other thing tomorrow. The asshole’s having a garden party. You’ll be able to walk in without any challenges.
Another text hard on the heels of that one:This is Rhi.
