Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“I get it,” I say. My voice is softer now. “We’ll get it to go if you want.”
She shakes her head. “I think I’m done.”
I wave the waitress over to get a box for Aubree’s leftover pancakes. She hustles behind the counter, and while we wait, Aubree leans forward. Her voice is low when she speaks. “How was that phone call earlier? Find out anything?”
I glance at my phone. A single new text from Dean reads: “Still digging, talk soon.” That’s all. “He’s still working through your list,” I say, keeping my tone neutral. What I don’t mention is that I asked him to look into her step-father, too. It’s just a hunch. But I’m not going to tell Aubree that yet, not until I have something concrete.
“Right,” she murmurs. “He told you he’s scanning their names, seeing if any of them have records or something?”
“Exactly.” I hold her gaze, trying to project confidence. “Between Dean and the rest of the Maddox crew, they’ll figure out if any of those folks pop up on a background check.”
Aubree exhales a shaky breath. The waitress returns with a small foam box, and I slip the pancakes into it, handing it back to Aubree. We pay the bill quickly—cash, another precaution—and walk out to the parking lot. The morning sun is bright, making us squint as we cross the cracked asphalt. My truck is parked in a corner space, away from most of the other vehicles, but I still check around it like I’m expecting an ambush.
I open the passenger door, and Aubree climbs in, hugging the to-go box to her chest. She leans her head back against the seat, looking pale. I round the front of the truck, scanning the lot one last time before getting in. The engine rumbles to life as I pull out onto the main road.
We drive for a few minutes in silence. The diner fades into the rearview mirror, replaced by farmland and stretches of highway. I’m waiting for her to speak, but she just stares out the window, lost in thought. Finally, I clear my throat. “We’ve got a two-hour drive, give or take, to the safe house. Might be more with traffic.”
“Right,” she says absently.
I grip the steering wheel, letting the hum of the tires on the asphalt calm me down a little. Once we’re on the highway, I figure it’s a good time to pick her brain. We need details—every single threat, every weird email, every suspicious look. That’s how we solve this. “Aubree,” I say, my voice cutting into the quiet. “Tell me everything about the past few months. Start from when the threats began.”
She twists in the seat to face me, pulling her knees up under her. “Everything?” she asks, sounding uncertain.
I glance over briefly, then back to the road. “Yeah. Don’t leave anything out. The more I know, the better I can protect you.”
She nods, inhaling deeply. “Okay, so… it started about three months ago. It began with these weird emails to my work account—Slice Slice Baby has an email address for catering orders and stuff. The first one just said, ‘I’m watching you.’ No context, no signature. I thought it was a prank, you know? The place is near a high school, so I figured some bored teenager was messing with me.”
I keep my eyes on the road, letting her words wash over me. “When did you realize it wasn’t just a prank?”
She shifts, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “The second or third email. It said something like, ‘We don’t want you here. Leave now before something bad happens.’ Or something along those lines. It was more direct, personal. It used the word ‘we,’ like there was more than one person. I started to get nervous, but I still didn’t call the police or anything. I told my mom, and she was the one who freaked out, telling me to hire security. I thought she was overreacting.”
I grunt. “Sounds like your mom has good instincts.”
She snorts softly. “Or just a lot of money and an overprotective streak. But yeah, maybe she was right.” She stares out the window for a moment, watching the farmland blur by. “Anyway, the emails kept coming, about once a week. Always from different addresses—like whoever it was knew how to mask their IP or something. They’d say stuff like, ‘You don’t belong here, get out,’ or ‘You’ll be sorry you stayed.’ I tried to ignore them, but then we started finding weird things.”
“Weird things?” I prompt, my muscles tensing.
She nods. “Notes on the door of the shop. Sometimes they were taped to the glass, sometimes shoved under the mat. They were basically the same message: ‘Leave. You’re not wanted.’ But then it escalated more—like the brick.”
My jaw tightens at the memory of that shattered window, the note scrawled in black marker. “And in between the brick and the emails, there was nothing else?”