“But what if something happens while I’m there?”
She hands me a card. “That has my 24-hour hotline on it. If you are deep in a panic or anxiety attack and need to talk to someone, call that number. I’ll answer right away. Have a great day.”
With that, she slams the door shut in my face.
Chapter 8
Invent a tracker for a Samoan Hulk.
-Rand’s to-do list
The slamming doors in my house continued this morning as Faylor left for school. It’s cute that she thinks I’m going to budge from thishard noto her Spring Break plans. Even though I try to avoid her friends’ single moms, I knew I would have to reach out and alert them to the machinations that were afoot. As predicted, Single Mom 1 and Single Mom 2 were “extremely grateful” and offered to show me just how grateful they were at dinner tonight.
I wanted to take them up on it, but Dick vetoed my plans.
I warn him that he needs to get it together.
He just laughs at me and tells me to get it together with Carolina Saber.
I remind him that she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend she was pretty adamant about during Flint and Celia’s wedding a few weeks ago. Carolina initially ran away from me.
She didn’t realize we wereinthe wedding party together. She was the Maid of Honor. I was the Best Man. That was pretty funny. Until it wasn’t.
Her Tardis-blue eyes frowned at me the entire time. But Dick didn’t care. He likes feisty women.
A giant Samoan Hulk barrels into my lab, knocking the door back into the wall and scaring the living piss out of me.
“Fuck-a-doodle-do!”
Flint Mendota stands at the doorway with a shit-eating grin on his face. “What’s up, man?”
I pick up the notebooks that fell to the floor when Flint disturbed the sanctity of the lab. “Nothing, but, you know, WORKING! What in the fuck nuggets are you doing in here?”
Flint saunters over to my desk. “Working on what?”
We have been friends for a long time. Long before he became the Operations Director at Saber Security. We both started at the company, working our way up. Flint as a tracker. Me, as a lab rat and occasional muscle in the field. I’ve known this dude for years, and I can tell when he’s up to something. It’s the same way I know when Faylor is lying to me.
I narrow my eyes at him. Fine. If he wants to play this game, I’ll play. “I’m working on a straw that changes colors when it interacts with drugs or poisons. I’ve been thinking about something like this for a while, but when Celia, I mean Mrs. Mendota, was poisoned in Mississippi, I realized we needed a better way to protect our assets in the field. It’s based on the premise of those prep school teenagers in Miami who invented the straw that detects date-rape drugs. My improved version would also alert us to toxic metals and carcinogens.”
Flint blinks at me for a second, used to my ramblings. “You’re developing something to keep Celia safer?”
I shrug. “Not just Celia. Everyone we care about. It’s been in the back of my mind since Faylor became a teenager. But the thing with Celia cemented it.”
A few months ago, Celia and Flint investigated the murder of her ex-husband. During the investigation, they faced off with the killer, who slipped selenium into Celia’s sweet tea and coffee. It made her incredibly sick, and all her hair fell out. She nearly died. The only “cure” for it was time. Allowing the heavy metal to leave her body on its own. If Celia had a way of detecting foreign substances in her glass, she could have avoided the hard road to recovery.
Flint blinks again but can’t speak. The giant is all choked up. It’s something I’ve gotten used to. The man loves his wife unconditionally. He’d do anything for her.
It must be nice.
I look down at my notes, giving Flint a moment to compose himself.
“Ah, yes,” Flint clears his throat. “Well, Celia wanted to invite you to Sunday dinner.”
I perk up. “Sunday dinner? At your house?”
He smirks. “No. At the Ward-Saber house.”
Oh, shit. An invitation to dinner with Wysdom Ward and her husband, Luke Saber. Luke, who happens to be Celia’s brother.
