Page 62 of Killing Emma

“What’s that?”

Jude’s eyes grow wide, like he’s been caught. “Uh… Nothing.”

“What is it?” I demand, my stomach feeling sick.

“A strip club,” he mutters, his shoulders dropping like he just caught. “I’m sorry.”

“Why… Why would he go there?” Emotions wrack my chest, harder than I expect. “I’m right here.” Insecurities bubble up in my mind, and suddenly, I’m sitting on the floor in my bedroom in Georgia again, reading through all the messages Jared sent her about me—how I wasn’t enough for him.

I’m not enough.

“Emma, I don’t know if that’s where he’s going… I didn’t know the two of you were like that—I don’t think he knows you have feelings for him.”

My brow furrows. “We’re sleeping together.”

“Oh good lord,” Jude laughs. “Because that guarantees feelings. Come on. He sees how upset you are over Jared.”

“Because he tried to have me killed,” I exasperate, throwing my hands in the air. “Not because I love him or something! It’s just hard to understand it all, and I’m trying to process just how fucked up it is.”

Jude nods, his voice calm. “I get it. Let’s just not… Let’s just not get worked up right now. It doesn’t change what’s happening right now.”

“Can you track him?” I blurt.

Jude groans. “You don’t wanna do that.”

“Yes, I do. I want to know where he goes.”

“I get you have trust issues—and I totally understand, but do you really want to know?”

“Yes.” I glare at him. “And if you don’t do it, I’ll figure out how to myself.” I grab the dish towel and dry my hands, leaving everything in the sink. “And you can tell me more about The Den, while you’re at it.”

He groans as I snake past him, and rush for the stairs, thundering up them. “Jeez, Emma, come on…”

But I don’t stop. I don’t slow down. I saw the option on the computer with some code name attached to devices. My guess is that partners keep tabs on each other. I make it to the door, which is closed.

Damnit. I don’t have the code.

“Ten, thirty-two, twelve.” Jude’s voice comes from behind me. “But whatever you find, you can’t assume he’s doing something with someone else. The Den is a complicated place.”

I roll my eyes. No strip club can be that complicated. I head straight for the computer, and wave the mouse, waking it up. I navigate to the file I found earlier and double click it.

“It’s encrypted.” Jude takes a seat beside me. “I’ll have to try to bypass it. My guess is only Manny and Luca had the passcode.”

I scoot over, letting Jude take over. “Can you teach me how to do this kind of stuff?”

Jude eyes me. “So you can keep tabs on Luca?”

“No, just because.” I purse my lips. “I’ve never been good at anything—and I thought I wanted to be a writer, but I’m not cut out for it. I want to be good at something.”

The sympathy in his face is annoying, but he shrugs. “You know, yeah. I’ll teach you—if you promise to stick around after your twenty days are up.”

My stomach knots up. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he nods, and then begins a step-by-step guide to bypassing the encryption. I take mental notes on the process, and my heart speeds up as it opens to a map. And sure enough, there’s Luca’s green dot, moving down the highway.

My teeth nearly start to chatter from nerves as I watch the dot continue to move at a steady pace. Jude sits there with me for the next twenty minutes, and together, we watch the dot eventually pull off into a parking lot.

And Jude’s sigh gives it away.

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