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Dante moved on again. This time he stopped at an enameled sunflower charm, in bright, eye-popping colors.
“That…” My eyebrows knitted together. Suddenly I understood. “Chris gave me that! On my birthday.”
It was the biggest and bulkiest thing on my keychain, and always had been. I kept it because I liked it. Because it was pretty.
“You don’t think…”
Everyone watched as Dante removed the sunflower from my key ring. He took one of the knives on the table and used the point to pry at the center of the flower. After two or three tries it popped off…
… and a small, black disc came clattering out.
“Oh shit.”
The disc landed near Adam. He picked it up, and read the single four-letter word scribed across it. “TILE.”
Trey was already calling up his smartphone’s browser. He punched a few buttons, then looked up. “It’s a GPS tracker,” he swore loudly. “Pretty big company.”
I was in utter and complete shock.
“Son of a bitch.”
“You download one little app,” Trey continued, “and you can track that thing to the ends of the Earth.”
We were all staring at each other, shaking our heads.
“No wonder this guy is always up your ass. He knows exactly where you are, every minute of every day.”
Forty-Six
BROOKE
It was strange, showing up at Chris’s place for once instead of the other way around. Driving up to the house he rented, or rather, the one his sister had rented for him. The place was a little neglected, but not run-down. The siding needed a good power-washing. The landscaping had been fairly ignored.
I took the cobbled walkway with as much confidence as I could, knowing I was safe no matter what. I’d only come here for one reason. And I’d come here with the guys’ full knowledge and blessing, under two very strict stipulations.
First, that both Adam and Dante were with me. That they’d remain at the curb, sitting silently in the car, while I dealt with Chris on my own.
Second, that no matter what he said or did, I was to remain outside. That if he refused to talk to me that was his right, but I was never, ever to go inside.
I rang the bell, which didn’t work, then rapped three times on the storm door. The glass was cold. The door rattled in its frame, feeling old and flimsy beneath my knuckles.
Chris answered in a dirty bathrobe, wearing a pair of shorts and a threadbare T-shirt I recognized from our time together. He held a full bowl of cereal in one hand. A spoon in the other.
“Brooke…” he said, sounding surprised. It was the first genuine reaction I’d seen from him in almost a year.
“Drop the charges.”
My ex looked at me, then glanced over my shoulder. Upon seeing the others sitting there in the car, he scowled.
“Trey’s not here,” I said quickly. “Those are just… some friends.”
“You mean Adam Liston and Dante Villavane?”
I stiffened as Chris brought the spoon to his mouth, spilling a few drops of milk on his robe in the process. “Yeah, I can see that,” he scoffed. “Friends. They look like really good friends.”
I’d expected a lot of things, gone over the conversation we might have on Chris’s porch a hundred times in my mind. But I’d never expected this.
“Yeah, I know who they are,” he confirmed without
