“Right,” Diego drawled. “Got your five hundred waitin’ for ya. Come meet me.”
His pulse kicked hard. Half of him wanted to throw the phone across the room, the other half was already thinking about how far that money could go on a date with Kelle. “Where?”
“You’re in Whisper, right?”
A drop of cold went straight down Andy’s spine.
His fingers froze on the chair’s armrest. Every sound in the house—every creak, every groan of the old beams—seemed to sharpen around him.
“How do you know I’m there?” he demanded, trying and failing to keep the waver out of his voice.
Diego let out a small, amused breath. “I have my sources.”
Andy swallowed hard.
“Are you in Whisper or not?”
His heart pounded so loud that he almost couldn’t hear himself respond. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Diego said smoothly. “Meet me at the grocery store off Main in ten minutes. Far end of the parking lot. I’ll be in a black Charger.”
Wariness tightened his throat. “Why there?”
A chuckle, low and entertained, came through the speaker. “Bing, if I wanted to do something to you, I wouldn’t pick a place with security cameras and old ladies who don’t mind their own fucking business. Chill.”
Chill. Right.
Easier said than done.
He pressed a hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. Logic whispered that he should block the number. Delete it. Move on.
But five hundred dollars...
That was more than he made in a week at the hardware store, and it wasn’t taxed. He also didn’t have to put the majority of it into his savings account at Tess’s insistence.
“You want the money or not?” Diego asked, voice sharpening.
He knew the right answer.
He also knew the one he was going to give.
Sighing, he opened his eyes. “Fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Good boy,” Diego said, and the line clicked dead.
Andy stared at his phone as if it might explode. Nausea rolled through his stomach like a violent maelstrom.
He gulped for air and shoved down the panic that threatened to overtake him.
Once he calmed enough to stand without face-planting, he shoved his phone into his pocket, grabbed his house keys, and tried—tried—to convince himself this would be the last time he did something so stupid.
When Andy steered the borrowed beach-house bike into the grocery store lot, he had to admit Diego was right—middle of the afternoon, people everywhere. Too many witnesses for anyone to try something stupid.
He pedaled toward the far end, weaving past shopping carts and a couple loading groceries into their trunk. No black Dodge Charger. No Diego.
Good. Bad. He couldn't tell which.
He coasted into a strip of shade cast by a row of trees, kicked the stand down, and climbed off. Sweat stuck his T-shirt to his back. The summer heatpressed down thick and slow, reducing the patch of cover to little more than a tease. He repeatedly wiped his palms on his jeans, but it didn’t help. His palms were still clammy.
