Page 40 of Exposed

The tips of her fingers dance on her lips as she mulls it over, her gaze snags on the document that will seal her to me until the last Carter Cartel member is indicted.

She looks up and licks her lips.

Yeah.

This is going to be interesting.

9

I AM THE POLICE

Goldie

“You’ve got a lot of stuff in that car.”

I jump when his voice hits me from behind. I twirl on the third step up from the ground, and my hand flies to my chest willing my heart to slow to a normal cadence.

“Mr. Elrod, you scared me. Please don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Seriously. I hate that Agent King Jennings was right about me looking over my shoulder. I’ve been doing it too long at this point.

“You’re jumpy,” Mr. Elrod announces.

“Ruff!”

A Pomeranian tucked under his arm makes me jump again. It’s tiny, gray around the muzzle, and looks like it might be fifty years old.

I take the three steps back down the stairs toward him. “You got a dog?”

“I’m dog-sitting for Elvira from the supermarket. She had to make a trip up to Tampa to visit her sister. This is Squirrel. Shenamed him for his tail. He looks like a squirrel,” he says, explaining the obvious.

“I didn’t know you liked pets.” My magnetism when it comes to dogs is strong, so I reach over to scratch the little guy on the head but jump when he snaps at me. “Oh. He’s cantankerous.”

What I want to say is they make quite the pair. The dog is as crabby as Mr. Elrod.

But my downstairs neighbor lifts the yapper up to his face and the dog licks his beard like he’s a sweet lollipop. “He just needs to get used to you.”

I have too much going on in my life to win the affection of a furry geriatric squirrel-dog. Gaining the fondness of Mr. Elrod was hard enough.

I start up the stairs again. “You two have fun.”

“You didn’t tell me… Where are you going with your car packed like that?”

I stop halfway up the stairs and glance back at my neighbor and his houseguest. Mr. Elrod is the last person I’d share my current life woes with. He’d inform the world of my canceled plans before I could unlock my door and flip on the lights. “I was going to make a trip back home to visit my mom, but something came up. Now I need to unpack.”

Mr. Elrod nods and carefully sets the dog on what little grass we have in the courtyard. “Better unpack your car tonight. We don’t need to attract any burglars with all that stuff visible for someone to bust out your windows.”

Exhaustion overwhelms me. This day needs to end so I can prepare for what’s to come. But Mr. Elrod’s penchant to boss everyone in the complex is annoying at best. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

I continue up the stairs as he calls after me, every word louder than the one before it. “First it’s your car, and then they’ll start busting into every car in the lot. Don’t do that to us, Goldie!”

“Goodnight, Mr. Elrod.”

When I finally get into my apartment, I lock the door and collapse on my sofa.

My phone vibrates with a call. My head falls back to the cushion, and I close my eyes when I answer. “Hey, Mom.”

“Where are you?”

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