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He gave me a two-finger salute and crouched down, digging his laptop back out of its bag.
“Evie, pull your car to the front. We can load it up first.”
“What do you need me to do?” Angel asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“See the tan duffel over there.”
She looked to where I was pointing and nodded.
“I need you to make me some special cocktails.”
CHAPTER FOUR
NOVA
I kept my attention trained on the side and rearview mirrors the entire drive across town. My body was wound so tight, I was more like a mannequin than a young woman made of flesh and bone.
He didn’t come after us, no one did. But just as I knew the sky was blue, I knew that eventually someone would. Maybe it wouldn’t even be Rhett or one of his friends. It could be one of the many people my father had pissed off before getting himself killed. Perhaps the person responsible for taking out the Parkers and Pamela.
Emery drove through our neighborhood as silent as a church mouse, her grip iron-clad on the steering wheel.
When we arrived at the house, she pulled into our driveway, still not having uttered a single word, stiffly putting the car in park. The look on her face told me a lecture was coming, followed by a million questions. I wasn’t ready to deal with that. I reached for the door with every intention of putting space between us, but before I could so much as grip the handle, Em promptly hit the lock button.
I shifted in my seat to look at her. “What are you doing?”
Her lower lip detached from the top in a show of disbelief. “You’re shitting me, right? You just tried to shoot Rhett, and then spent the whole drive checking behind us like you expected him to chase you down. What is going on Nova?”
“It’s--.”
“Don’t give me that ‘it’s complicated’ or it’s ‘nothing bullshit’,” she snapped. “I was locked in a room so I couldn’t get to you. And you’re holding the butterfly necklace your dad had with him, the very one we thought was gone for good. Where did you get it?”
I swallowed down the exact words she demanded I didn’t say. Honestly, there wasn’t much I wanted to tell her. She was already involved far more than I ever wanted her to be. I’d been managing to keep her in the dark just fine until Rhett showed up. Funny how his arrival seemed to of triggered this avalanche of turmoil.
The truth was a double-edged sword. It would cut us both deeply. I couldn’t tell her what I’d done. Emery knew I had some underlying issues, but I didn’t believe for one second she thought me capable of murder. She wouldn’t understand how I wasn’t sorry or remorseful.
She wouldn’t be able to fathom the reality of me taking the life of another human being.
“Rhett had it,” I answered quietly.
She lurched forward as if she’d been shoved, placing both hands on the dash.
“And I don’t know why,” I added before the questions could begin. It was another lie. The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach told me exactly why he would have had this necklace.
He was there the night my parents died. I wasn’t ready to say that out loud, though. The moment I did I’d be acknowledging it. Facing the music so to speak. I couldn’t work it all out yet, anyway. The scenario playing out in my mind didn’t make any sense.
“So, where did you find it?” Emery questioned; shock still evident in her tone.
“It was in a box.”
“A hidden box?”
“Not…exactly.”
She leaned back, brows furrowing in thought. “Then he wanted you to find it.”
I side eyed her. That was a perfectly logical explanation. I would’ve come up with that myself if my head wasn’t all over the place. Rhett didn’t strike me as the type to slip in such a major way. That asshole did everything with confidence and purpose.
But why? Why did he have it and why did he want me to know he did?
