The meeting is clearly over.
Another text pops up.
Challenge accepted. ;) I'll make sure to creep outside your
It’s unfinished. Paranoia’s engines blast off. I glance at the center console. In the cup holder sits the card Detective Montague pressed into my hand during our handshake goodbye.
You gonna finish that sentence?
It shows read. No typing bubbles appear.
My heart rate veers toward cardiac arrest.
The contact photo assigned to my boyfriend fills the screen.He’s fine. See? Maybe he forgot something—
My stomach shoots into my throat as soon as I answer.
The voice on the line isn’t Win’s. It’s not even male.
“... angel dust. You know why?”
Jessica.
Instinct screams at me to storm the church, but I have no idea what is going on in there.Be smart, Rem. Snatching the detective’s card and muting myself, I add a call. My hands shake so hard I almost drop the phone as I simultaneously forward the location pin Win sent earlier with a short message.
Win is in trouble - Remy.
“Detective Montague.”
“... Crazy what a little cocaine, some ecstasy, ketamine, and a bit of Viagra can do. But if you’re unlucky, it might be cut with fentanyl," she continues.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Everything out of her venomous mouth becomes a foreign language like my brain refuses to process the things she’s spewing. But when Win speaks, it’s even worse. His words are slurred and his voice is almost unrecognizable— manic.
The cramping in my chest escalates.
Finally I get a text.
This is Detective Montague. I’m recording the call. Officers dispatched.
Adrenaline floods my bloodstream. Rage cancels out the dread.
I’m going in.
No. Wait for officers to arrive.
Yeah, fuck that.
Flying out of the driver’s seat, I all-out sprint through the doors. She mentioned a bathroom. Vomit rises in my throat. The phone in my hand vibrates repeatedly with incoming messages. I ignore them. Two corridors branch off the small entrance. One leading to the nave, the other…
Has a restroom sign.
Tension strings me taut as I creep past a worn wooden cross, a beat-up water fountain, and a collage of nativity scenes all while fighting the worst-case scenarios my brain creates. I have to catch this bitch by surprise or I might endanger Win more.
Light seeps from the crack under the men’s room door.
A shadow passes again and again, a muttered rant muffled by the thick wood. My hand flattens on the scratched gold push plate.
