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“Still. He’s going to wring every dime out of you that he can.” Nancy’s voice was grim and grimy, her throat scratchy with smoke. “Gird your loins, girl. I know you’re hiding out right now, but he’s going to find you.”
I thanked her and then got off the phone. I hoped that numbness would take over, but it never comes when you need it.
“Quinn?” Renee set down her plate on the coffee table, alarmed. The fork rattled across it, sending jump scares up my spine.
“He’s in debt,” I repeated, even though I knew she’d overheard that part.
“Yeah, so? Let the fucker get his balls chopped off and buried in the desert somewhere. Problem solved.” Renee’s voice was grim though, like she’d already gleaned that wasn’t the likely outcome.
“Jason Cain doesn’t get buried in the desert. He’s the one who buries people. People who don’t make him the money he thinks they owe him. People who don’t do hisprivate performances.”
Now Renee got it. We stared at each other across the same living room in which we’d watched a thousand movies, eating tubs of popcorn and splitting boxes of Bunch a Crunch. We’d posed for homecoming pictures against that picture window. We’d all piled on that couch to take the cover art for what we loftily calledour first EP. And now we were talking about a very dangerous man who would have a very dangerous grudge against me unless I did what he wanted.
It was all too incongruous and strange. It made me wonder if I would have been better off handling this in the city where the normality of my past wouldn’t constantly be butting up against my fucked-up reality, showing me how disastrously off course my life had gone. But as Renee crossed the room and wrapped her arms fiercely around me, I knew I was in the right place.
“Callum is going to fix this,” Renee said fiercely into my hair. “And if he doesn’t, hell.I’llchop off this Jason guy’s balls and bury him in the desert.”
I snorted, a hysterical laugh working its way up through my grim shock. “And who would ever suspect you, the elementary school music teacher?”
“No one.” Renee clapped my head between her hands and leaned back, lips curving in a diabolical grin. “And you know those fifth graders would lie for me if they had to.”
“They might have to.”
Renee smacked a kiss on my forehead and spun away. “Listen, do you want me to call out of work? I can still–” she checked the time on her phone and grimaced.
I was already shaking my head. I knew how much work it was for a teacher to take a planned day off, much less a last minute one. “No, I’m fine.”
When Renee left, I locked the door behind her. It felt strange to be in this house alone. I wandered through the rooms, feeling as though any minute, Mr. and Mrs. Evans would come through thefront door and ask what I was doing there by myself. I had just settled back at the kitchen table when a heavy knock at the door sent my heart skittering up into my throat.
For a second, I sat frozen, my leg pulled up into the chair beside me, my hands clasped around a mug of tea. It couldn’t be Jason Cain. Itcouldn’tbe.
“Quinn, it’s me.”
Callum’s voice, faint but distinct, floated through the heavy wooden door. Relief couldn’t quite subdue the nerves jumping up and down underneath my skin, but at least my heart stopped its triple pounding in my chest.
Still holding my tea, I unfolded myself from the chair and walked through the living room to open the door for him.
“Did you look through the sidelight before you opened the door?” Callum asked, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. As I considered the question, he turned the regular lock on the door and then did the deadbolt.
“I did not,” I said slowly, thethwackof the deadbolt shooting into the doorframe still ringing in my ears.
“What if Jason had been with me?”
I finally managed to pull my eyes away from the door and stared at him. “I guess I would have been in trouble, right? That’s why you’re here.”
Callum’s mouth was a grim line. “Yeah. That’s why I’m here.”
“You saw him, didn’t you?” I didn’t need his nod for confirmation. There was only one way people believed thatJason was really as bad as you said, and that was to see it for themselves.
“I drove into the city last night. I thought I could make this go away for you.” His jaw tightened. “That’s not how it went.”
I shook my head. No, of course not. I could have told him that. “So you found a loophole in the contract, and he told you to put it around your neck and hang yourself?”
“More or less.” Callum’s troubled green eyes lit on my hands. They were shaking so badly that the hot water in my mug was sloshing dangerously close to the rim. I stared at them, too, willing them to steady. It was no use. If Callum was here, double locking the doors and quizzing me about safety protocol, things were definitely bad.
A scorching hot drop of water dribbled down and scalded my thumb, but I still couldn’t move. Suddenly, Callum’s larger hands entered my periphery. They closed around mine, holding them still.
“I’ll figure this out,” he said quietly.
