He’d handed me his phone, made me download some app, rattled off instructions I only half listened to—because who the hell actually needed to track their friends—and then vanished into the night like it was just another Tuesday.
Except it wasn’t just a Tuesday. It was a Sphinx initiation night.
Which meant when I finally went back, I was pacing the living room, staring at my phone like it was written in Greek, while worst-case scenarios scrolled across my brain like ESPN highlights.
Mauled by a wild dog.
Buried alive in some crypt.
Sacrificed in a candlelit ceremony by dudes in masks.
I stabbed at the screen again. “Come on, Jace. How hard can it be?”
The app blinked back at me, useless.
That’s when the knock came.
The door swung open before I could answer, and in swept Darla, our terrifying next-door neighbor, wearing leopard print pants, a floral blouse, and enough patchouli perfume to fumigate the house. A Tupperware container of cookies was tucked under her arm like it was a baby.
“Evenin’, Matty,” she said sweetly, dropping the cookies on the coffee table. “Brought you boys a little treat.”
I sighed, dragging a hand down my face. “Darla, it’s midnight.”
I appreciated Jace forgetting to lock the front door after he’d left. Real thoughtful of him to leave me accessible to home invaders, Girl Scouts, and the local population of aggressive cougars on the prowl.
“And?” She popped the lid off the cookies and shoved one into her mouth. “You look stressed, honey. Sugar helps.”
I eyed the cookies. Then my phone. Then her.
Desperate times.
“Darla,” I said slowly. “How are you with apps?”
She perked up instantly, like a cat hearing a can opener. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I vaguely remembered her mentioning she worked in IT. Or maybe she’d just said she was good with hardware. Either way, this was Jace’s life we were talking about. I apparently had to gamble.
“Depends,” Darla repeated, licking chocolate off her thumb. “What’s in it for me?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, what’s in it for you? It’s an app. You either know how to use it or you don’t.”
She leaned back against the couch, crossing her legs. The clash of leopard print and daisies burned my retinas, but at least she was wearing pants. She’d flashed her vagina at us a few times since we’d moved into the house, and the scars from that sight were never going to go away.
“Oh, I know how to use it, Matthew. Question is, how bad do you want me to?”
Fuck. She’d smelled my desperation. Or saw it, I supposed. I’d been pulling my hair out since I’d realized where Jace was going.
I groaned. “Jace could be dead in a ditch right now.”
“Then you really want me to help, don’t you?” she said brightly.
I raked a hand through my hair. “Fine. What do you want? Money? Cookies? You already brought cookies, so?—”
“Pictures.”
That stopped me cold. “Excuse me?”
Her grin widened. “Pictures. For my collection. Something tasteful. Something…cowboy.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
