One from them saying he needed to leave whatever it was alone and another one from him saying it was too late for that.
Whoever sent the warning had been near Grady the night Sam died. That could’ve meant they were one of the shooters, the person who ordered it, or simply another piece of whatever Sam had gotten himself involved in. Either way, I needed the name behind the number.
Mace hadn’t gotten back to me yet, which wasn’t unusual. Prepaid numbers weren’t always easy to trace. Still, I found myself opening my messages and rereading our exchange.
Mace: You got in it?
I stared at those four words longer than I should have.
He hadn’t asked what I found…
He hadn’t asked whether there were more threats…
He’d wanted to know if I had access to the phone itself…
…there was a difference.
I returned to Sam’s phone and opened his recent messages. Mace’s name sat near the top, right where I expected it to be. They’d spoken damn near every day, sometimes several times a day, but I’d never had a reason to care what they discussed. They both worked with me, and Sam had a habit of calling people whenever a thought entered his head.
I tapped the thread.
The recent messages looked like what I expected.
Mace:Vice wants everybody at the restaurant by six.
Sam:That nigga don’t know how to ask.
Mace:You going either way.
Sam:Unfortunately.
I kept scrolling. Most of it was work, plans, jokes and the same kind of shit Sam texted all of us. There were messages about my aunt, Sunday dinners and places they planned to go.Nothing that explained Mace’s strange reaction or gave me a reason to think he knew more about Sam’s death than he’d admitted.
I was about to close the thread when a message from Sam caught my attention.
Sam:You still mad?
Mace had responded almost an hour later.
Mace:I’m straight. We’ll talk when you get here.
I frowned but kept scrolling. The exchange could’ve been about anything. They worked together and argued like brothers whenever one of them got irritated. If I hadn’t already been suspicious, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Several days earlier, Sam had sent another message.
Sam:I hate when you do that shit.
Mace:Do what?
Sam:Act like nothing matters when it does.
Mace:Not doing this over the phone.
Sam:You never wanna do it in person either.
I sat back in my chair.
That didn’t sound like work.
