I jerk my head toward his voice.
“Carnival Tower!” I hear Hawke grit out. “I just came from there, and it’s fucking closed up.”
I stop and veer to the makeshift window with netting separating me from the outside. I press myself to the wall next to it, hearing them out on the grass.
“I don’t understand,” Dylan says.
“What don’t you understand?” Hawke sounds out of breath. “I can’t get in. Quinn warned me about renovations she’s planning, so I went to clear out some essentials, and I was locked out!”
Carnival Tower. So that’s what they call it.
I fold my lips between my teeth to stifle my amusement.
“You tried the roof?” Hunter chimes in.
“Oh, yeah,” Hawke mocks. “Should’ve done that. Completely forgot.” Then, in a bark, “Yes, I tried the roof! I tried Rivertown too. The phones are in there, and I haven’t finished gathering the data from the one left at Quinn’s shop!”
I stand up straight. The phone left at my shop? I lock my jaw. Hawke took that phone from Lost and Found?
What the hell is going on? My lungs swell with pain. The fuck?
What other phones? What data? What the fuck are they doing?
“It’s Manas or Deacon,” Dylan speaks up next. “It has to be. One of them left her the phone, just like they’ve kept leaving us phones, so we know they’re around.”
“At least one of them,” Hunter adds.
Manas and Deacon… Are they dangerous?
“Why would they lock us out now, after years?” Aro questions.
“Because they’re using it now?” Hunter offers.
Someone else breathes out, “Fuck.”
Manas and Deacon. Two people they know who have been leaving them phones. For what? Phones like the one that was left at my shop? Old ones?
It’s not these two characters who locked them out of the tower, but someone did leave the phone at my shop. That man the other night. The one in the suit who stayed late and didn’t speak.
He left it formeto find. He has access to the hideout? My chin trembles.
“It’s time to tell her,” Kade says.
“Manas won’t hurt her.”
“And if it’s Deacon?” he retorts.
“It’s not a coincidence that they leave another phone and lock us out right after she returns home,” Hawke states.
My mind swims. Have these men been watching me?
Dylan whispers, “She looks like Winslet.”
My God. I don’t know what to think. It’s all coming too quickly.
“And she just asked me about the ’72 black Dodge,” Aro tells them.
I bow my head, leaning into the wall again. A tear spills over. They’re all having this conversationabout mewithout me. It’s like this secret life they all lived and didn’t include me. Why?
