“She in the habit of traveling alone?” I asked.
“No. I don’t think she’s ever been anywhere, really.”
“Then it isn’t a coincidence. She’s been doing serious digging. And if your 17-18-year-old friend can find us, then we aren’t doing a very fucking good job at hiding. You got anything to tell me?”
How the fuck was this happening? Tia didn’t do something stupid, did she? No. She wouldn’t be that stupid. What about Lisa? Was Pop’s former sex slave widow pulling some shit?
“Like what?” Tia asked.
“Like have you told anyone where we are? Have you logged into social media? Have you done anything that might make it easy for Mia to find us?”
She went sheet-white.
Oh, for fuck sakes.
“Fuck, Tia. What the fuck?”
“I logged into Facebook. I didn’t even post. I was just playing that stupid candy game and I…”
“Fuck! How could you be so fucking stupid?”
She grabbed her hair at both sides of her head, looking mortified. “I was bored and…”
“You were bored? You were fucking bored? So it’s okay because you were bored that you put our lives in danger?”
This was an absolute clusterfuck of epic proportions.
If Tia’s little friend found us… who else was looking that could find us? I had the urge to grab her now, and flee.
“You don’t let me go anywhere and I didn’t think it would do anything. I didn’t post anything, I just connected the accounts and…” Was she really ready to start giving me attitude about this?
“You didn’t think. You didn’t fucking think. Fuck, Tia.”
The waterworks started with her and I didn’t have the fucking patience for it right now. “Out. I’ve gotta make some calls.”
“Tommy, I’m sorry.”
“Out. Fucking fuck!” I smashed my fist on the desk. She hurried out.
***
Tia was crying when I found her shortly after finishing emailing with Zack and I didn’t have it in me to be supportive at that moment. I stood over her in the bed and said, “Tomorrow morning you get up and you phone Mia and you call her off.”
She nodded at me, tears in her eyes.
“I need to do some serious fucking damage control, Tia. Thanks a fucking bunch.”
She’d covered her face, sobbing. I stormed out of the bedroom and went to the rooftop to beat the fuck out of the punching bag. And I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t sleep because if a goddamn teenager could find us then so could my enemies and that meant that I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t feel safe, so I stayed up all night stressing about it.
***
The next morning after prepping from me and some more harsh words that she probably didn’t need to hear, she called Mia from a burner phone on hands-free and I listened.
“Hello?” the female voice answered.
“Mia? It’s Tia.” Tia sat on the sofa, hands fidgeting in her lap. She looked like she hadn’t slept much either.
“Tia? Holy shit. Tia?”