“O-o-okay.”
“You wanted to hang with us back home even though you knew what we were. I told you when I paid your bail, you’d owe us big, so buck the hell up and quit crying.”
It all started to make sense.
“I’m gonna drive back and drop you off. Say you were saving a dog or cat on the road or whatever shit you come up with, but if I see the police or your friends, you die, she dies, then I go for your family.”
Wow, I could see the appeal in wanting to hang out with this Haldon guy. Why wasn’t every best friend like him? It felt like my whole life had been a lie. My sarcasm was wasted, seeing as how only I could hear it, but I wasn’t the only one, surely, who’d think like that in my shoes.
The car started moving again, this time pitching sharp to the right and sending my head into the side of the trunk again, telling me he was doing a u-turn before he straightened up, and we were back on the even surface of the road.
I’d been lucky the Haldon guy had kept the engine running, I guess, because the heat in the trunk was going from hot to: I have sweat in my ass crack, thigh creases, undertits, underarms, ears, and every hair follicle and pore on my body. Without the engine running, I’d probably have suffocated.
Did that make me disloyal to Marcus’s twin’s wife, Sasha? She was hella into the environment, and idling engines were the bane of the ozone, weren’t they? I’d have to apologize to her when I finally met her. And maybe, as part of the apology and to show some solidarity with us being with twins, I’d trade in my Jeep for an electric car when the contract was up? Or a hybrid would do.
Swiping some sweat away from my face, I ground my back teeth together. The heat was making my distraction techniques last shorter than before. The other problem was that hot vehicles had always made me feel claustrophobic. Add that into the darkness, and I was going to have to find a way to either cope or to get out.
I would have loved to think that someone would see the vehicle and wonder if I was in it or acknowledge that it wasn’t one that was recognized in the area, but I couldn’t even remember what it looked like.
All I knew was that I’d decided to walk from Marcus’s place down to my own this morning before my meeting, and as I’d gotten to the bottom, I’d seen a vehicle parked on the side of the road with the hood popped. The next thing, I’m in here and being thrown around like a pinball.
I’m sure it was a dark color, but I remember it being dirty as hell and wondering if the paint on it was originally metallic or just normal under all the dust and mud on it.
How observant could one person be? Given that I’d left my watch and phone at Marcus’s that morning… I think we’d covered the answer to that question.
Chapter Twenty
Marcus
Seeing Mrs. V’s name come up on my phone, I frowned and made my way out of the stables as I pressed the screen.
Before I could even say hi, she was shouting into my ear.
“Where’s Adrienne? Her computer’s going crazy, and I thought about answering it, but no filter will make me look like her. I tried her phone, but she doesn’t pick it up, Marcus.”
Changing direction, I jogged toward my house, squinting to see if I could see her through the windows at all. Nothing.
Sure as shit, I heard her phone ringing as soon as I walked through the door and recognized the conductor’s name on the screen.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I was looking in all of the rooms and bathrooms, not even thinking about the possibility of Sadie or Elijah being in one of them before I could catch my breath.
“She’s not here. Her meeting was meant to start an hour ago, Mrs. V.”
“I know that,” she screeched. “It’s why her computer keeps making noises at me. Where is she?”
Picking up the house phone, I stabbed in Remy’s number and waited for him to answer while I put Addy’s grandmother on speaker.
“Where are you?” he grumbled.
“Have you seen Addy? She had a meeting and never made it back to her place for it. Her phone’s still here, but she isn’t, and Mrs. V hasn’t seen her.”
As quickly as that, my best friend changed into the competent guy who always thought outside the box.
“I’m just pulling up the feeds to see if she’s on any of the clips from the cameras. Did she drive or walk?”
“She said she was going to walk, but I don’t know if Sadie or Santana maybe gave her a ride, instead.”