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Fuck.
“Where are you?” are his first words, causing the SUV to blur in front of my eyes.
Sultry music filters through the speaker as Cyrus’s voice fades like he’s speaking to somebody else. Suddenly, he’s back on, full volume again as he asks, “Why the fuck aren’t you at The Playground right now giving me an update?”
Everything coming back into focus, I exhale away from the phone.
“I’m out of town, following a lead.”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“I tried. I called you before I left but your voicemail was full.”
“Huh. I thought I just cleared that thing.”
Shit. Hopefully not. His voicemail is always full, that’s why I said it.
“What kind of lead we talking? I thought it was cut and dry. The Debrosse brothers knocking off the Debrosse empire.”
“There might be another partner, a silent one. If they’re splitting their profit with him, it might not be as big a pot as I originally thought.”
“Not as big a pot as you originally thought, huh?”
I don’t like the way he keeps saying huh.
“That’s why I’m checking it out myself.”
“Where’s this silent partner live?”
I don’t want him thinking I’m too far away that he can try anything while I’m gone, but I don’t want him knowing anywhere close to my actual location either, so I tell him a town about the same distance from Fox Hollow as I am right now, just in the opposite direction.
“Bedford.”
“Bedford, huh?”
There’s that word again. Poppies, the omen for evil, pop up in my mind.
“I know a guy from Bedford. What’s his name?”
I say, “Damon Poppy,” then add, “the fourth,” to make it sound more hollowish.
“The fourth? Elitist snobs,” he mutters more to himself. To me, he asks, “When will you have an update for me?”
“Next week.”
“You planning on staying in Bedford that long?”
“Maybe.”
“I need you back Sunday.”
Sunday isn’t enough time. I haven’t even talked to Lex about all this yet. I’m biding my time, waiting for the perfect opportunity. She’s not going to be happy finding out I’ve been lying to her, but if she trusts me, really fucking trusts me, then it’ll be easier to explain why I lied. I’m hoping she’ll at least hear me out. If I try telling her now, she wouldn’t stick around to hear anything. She’d fight, leave, or most likely fight, then leave.
And because I’m dealing with Lex here, those are best-case scenarios. I’m well aware she might actually use those wire cutters to cut the vein in my neck.
“Sunday? I don’t think—”
“I don’t pay you to think. I pay you to do. Remember, hollows seek, foxes find. Be here Sunday.”
