He appeared in the doorway almost immediately. “What is it?”
She pointed. “This board looks off.”
He knelt and ran his hand over the floor. Then he knocked, his eyes lifting to hers when it rang hollow. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and pried the scratched end up with a creak.
Coop leaned forward and peered into the opening. “There’s a bag in there.”
“What kind of bag?”
“Looks like a duffel.”
When he would have reached into the hole, she grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
He sat back on his heels, brows lifting.
“Maybe it’s better if I do it,” she said.
“Why?”
“If you touch it first, I might lose the signal.”
He studied her for a moment before nodding at the opening. “It’s your show.”
Erica reached in and lifted out a white canvas bag with glittery pink letters. Taylor Swift’s smiling face was emblazoned on the side. The moment her fingers closed around it, a cold rush of fear slid through her. It didn’t feel fresh but left behind.
Images flickered, thin and uneven, like a flashlight dying. A bedroom door closing, the lock turning, and shaky hands lifting the floorboard. Cheyenne flooded her senses, frightened but determined as she shoved the bag into the space beneath the floor.
Hide it. Before he comes back.
The emotion wasn’t sharp like the collar, more like a bruise, tender and deep. Cheyenne wasn’t afraid for herself. She was protecting something. Or someone.
A different emotion surfaced, something darker, menacing, and violent. Then the scent hit her.
Blood. Hot and metallic. But also a cleaner, cooler scent. Was that mint?
That couldn’t be right.
Before she could process what it meant, an accented voice cut through the darkness—cold and unyielding.
“This is what happens when debts go unpaid.”
She saw hands, coated and dripping crimson. A man’s hands. Then the image shifted, and she saw Debra Wilson lying on the living room floor, surrounded by a widening pool ofblood. Most came from the slash across her throat. The rest came from her left hand, missing a finger.
The images were so vivid, Erica’s hands flew to her mouth as her stomach roiled. The broadcast cut off the instant the bag slipped from her grasp, as though someone had flipped a switch.
Coop’s hands came to her shoulders, steadying her. “Talk to me.”
She swallowed hard as she tried to suppress the bile burning her throat. “Cheyenne hid it.”
“What?”
“Money. Lots of it.”
Coop grabbed the tote and yanked the zipper open. He stared at the contents a beat too long, trying to make sense of it.
“What is it?”
He angled the bag toward her, revealing bundles of neatly wrapped hundred-dollar bills. “The missing quarter million her father borrowed.”
