Page 56 of Hidden With You

He shakes his head. “Nope. Only giving her an introduction to reality. Poor thing’s probably never had a date in her life.”

I giggle. “You may be right.”

“Home? Or do you want to go somewhere else?”

I take his hand as we step off the tram. “I want to go home.” I squeeze his fingers. “Can you guess why?”

He doesn’t say anything, but he pulls me to him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It does bother me. But only because I want more time with you. I want all the time. And there’s this gap. And we’ve already lost so much time.”

“Then you’ll just have to stay in incredible shape. And we’ll have to make the best use of every single minute.”

He grins. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. But more than that, you make me happy.”

“I think that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”

“Yeah? Well, then I guess we’re working just great.” We’re holding hands, parting only when we reach the car. He opens the door for me, then goes to the driver’s side.

As he slides in, his phone buzzes. He pulls it out, checks his texts, and mutters a soft curse.

“What’s wrong?” He just shakes his head, then taps the phone to open an attached file. From my angle I can’t see anything other than that it’s a photograph. But I can tell from his face that it’s not good.

“What happened?” I ask, at the same time he murmurs, “Oh, fuck,” his voice so low that I know he doesn’t even realize I’m in the car anymore. He’s somewhere else. Somewhere horrible. And I don’t understand what’s happened.

Gently, I take the phone from him, relieved when he doesn’t protest. The photo is of a woman sprawled out under a desk on cheap carpet, a bullet hole in her forehead.

I fight a wave of nausea, then close the photo and go back to the original text message. It’s from someone named Liesl, with no last name in his contacts.

I went to check on her like you asked. I’m so sorry. This is what I found. — L