North looks at me as if I’m nuts. I feel nuts.
Shrugging, I try again. “What you see is what you get with Delilah. She gives it to you straight.” No matter how deep it cuts. “She doesn’t care if you’re impressed with her or not.”
“Sounds like you know her well.”
Do I know Delilah? Yeah, I do, though she’d hate that. And she knows me. A weird twist goes through my chest—part excitement, part revulsion—as if I’m being unwillingly stripped bare and am not sure whether I like it or not.
“We grew up together. Sam, Delilah, and me.”
The three fucked-up musketeers. Because even though Sam and I were shits and tried to exclude Delilah, she was always part of the equation. Always.
“Does Delilah know where Sam is?”
“She says she doesn’t.” Shit, my neck is tight. I lift my arm to squeeze it, and my ribs scream in protest.
North’s eyes narrow. He knows I’m in pain but thankfully doesn’t point it out. “You just said Delilah was a straight shooter. So you believe her?”
“Yes. Unfortunately.” I stare out at the sea once more. Everything is on its head now. “And if Delilah can’t find her, no one can.” Which means my mother’s watch is truly gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam has already pawned it.
The rage grows so thick it chokes me. Sam has taken one too many things from me—my memories, my freaking safety—and I’m past forgiveness. I need to call the police. I need to hunt down the watch, not think about a certain sassy woman with a honey-and-arsenic voice.
Delilah.
Her name swirls in my mind without warning, pushing its way in and settling there. She’s coming here—with or without Sam. My money is on her showing up alone. Whether she wants to admit it or not, Delilah knows as well as I do that when Sam makes an escape, nothing is going to bring her back until she is good and ready.
Either way, I’ll be dealing with Delilah. My old enemy. The one person I have never been able to ignore. Somehow, she’s always been able to slip past any defense I’ve tried.
And now she’s going to be on my home turf. Which sounds juvenile as hell, but I find myself fixating on it—on her: Will she look the same? Hate me as much as before?
Without meaning to, I pull my wallet from my pocket and take out the battered card I have tucked into it.
Dear Delilah Catering Co. is printed in bold, bright orange across a deep-pink background. The colors are too flashy for the brooding girl I knew, but the old-fashioned business card is pure Delilah, who tended to slip into talking all formal and stodgy when she got flustered.
I feel a smile tugging at my lips, and it pisses me off. I have no business getting nostalgic again. I’ve been robbed and taken advantage of by one sister. And now the other sister, the one who told me I was a worthless, hateful soul, is coming to see me. Doubtless she’ll be pleading Sam’s case, willing to take the fall for her little scam-artist sister yet again.
That pisses me off too. But the clench of anticipation in my gut cannot be denied. I text Delilah my address and tell her to be here by five on the day of the deadline. I can’t help adding “or else,” knowing it will piss her off. When she replies with an eye-roll emoji and tells me to piss off so she can bake, my smile is wide.
Like it or not, I still enjoy pushing her buttons, and I can’t wait for her to show.
CHAPTER THREE
Delilah
DeeLight to SammyBaker: Since you’re not checking texts, I’m hunting you via Instagram and FB messages. Don’t make me start publicly Snapchatting you. I know what you did to Macon. If you had any honor you’d get your butt home.
DeeLight to SammyBaker: You’ll have to do it eventually. And I have knives, Sam. Sharp as shit knives.
DeeLight to SammyBaker: Did I mention I can debone a chicken in under a minute with those knives?
DeeLight to SammyBaker: CHICKEN!
Honestly, I thought I knew what desperation felt like. But it is abundantly clear that I’ve been woefully ignorant on that matter. Desperation, I have come to learn, causes a humiliating amount of roiling insides and shaking hands. I am sick—sick—with it. I want to do as Sam has done and disappear. Good Lord, disappearing sounds like the answer to all my prayers right about now.
When I gave my promise to hunt down Sam, it hadn’t occurred to me that since she’d forwarded her calls to my phone, I wouldn’t be able to call her either. I blame this oversight on being flustered by having to talk to Macon Saint for the first time in ten years. So I’ve been left to search for her by driving to all her regular haunts and calling her friends.