Page 144 of Say Yes to the Death

“I mean what the hell are you doing here when a psychotic person just left an organ on your doorstep? Go home.”

Claire shot her a dirty look and dropped her purse on the conference table. “Am I supposed to throw in the towel and curl into a ball and cry every time these psychos do something to me? No. They’ve ruined enough things in my life. Like our business’s reputation, for example. I would bet anything one of them called the press on me at Yee Haw’s.” The thought had been rolling around in her mind for a while now. She had no proof, but it felt true.

“Why do they keep doing this to you?” Mindy asked quietly.

Tears burned unexpectedly and she sniffed them back. Emotions were not invited to this work meeting. But if Luke deserved honesty about how she was feeling, so did her best friend. “I don’t know. When I followed that guy at Venor, he said something about training exercises. He named a whole bunch of categories—vehicular, psychological. I can’t even remember them anymore. I think they’re torturing me to train their recruits. And eventually, they’re going to run out of training exercises.”

Maybe the heart had been their final warning.

“I’m tired of waiting for them to escalate,” she continued. “I honestly wish they would just hurry up and try to kidnap me already. Every time they do something else, all I can think about is you and Nicole and the guys and Rosie. And what will happen when they hit the end of their list? What will they do when they really want to hurt me? What if they go after someone I love? I’m putting every single one of you in danger, just by virtue of being associated with me.”

“Stop it,” Mindy said. “If any of those assholes tried to hurt one of us, we would destroy them because we’re not a bunch of idiot frat boys with suspicious access to dead body parts.”

Claire bit her lip. “I think they’re capable of more than we think. There’s no doubt in my mind that the idiot who stalked me on Venor’s campus would have taken me if I hadn’t locked myself in the newspaper room.”

Mindy reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Claire dabbed a tissue under one eye.

“Of course.” Mindy bit her lip and stared around the room as though expecting to see a new topic of conversation crowded between the tablecloths and sconces on the shelf behind them. “Did you see the article about you finally stopped gaining traction? A state senator had an affair, so it’s yesterday’s news now.”

“It’s still out there. Every time somebody Googles us,” Claire said bitterly, setting her laptop on the table. ESA would pay for this. And in the meantime, she was going to cut back on the drinking.

“I will increase our budget for search engine optimization next month.” Mindy turned on her tablet and tapped away. “So, you stayed with Luke last night.”

“Yes.” Claire drew her hair back into a bun.

“Does that mean you’re back together?” Mindy peered over her screen.

“I think so. We actually had a really good talk. He brought a binder and everything. He told me about his dad and more about his past than I ever expected to hear.”

Mindy whistled. “A binder? He must really like you. I can’t get Gavin to talk about his feelings to save my life.”

Claire smiled. “Maybe you should try screaming at him and then falling off a boat in Paris.”

“Excellent advice. So, should we talk about the escape room?”

“Yes. I had some ideas this morning.” Finally, some talk she could handle without having an emotional breakdown.

“Oh my god, she’s okay. Claire, what the hell is wrong with you?”

Someone grabbed at her arm. Claire blinked. Where was she? Why was it so cold? What was on her hands? And why were her nipples on fire? The last thing she remembered was a meeting with Mindy at her apartment that stretched almost to midnight. They had headed straight to bed afterward. But this wasn’t her bedroom.

She was standing barefoot in some damp grass. An unfamiliar house was in front of her. A hot pink “female” symbol on the siding was still wet.

“We need to go, now.” Someone tugged her backward, and she stumbled.

“She’s still coming out of it. I got her,” a masculine voice said.

The porch light of the house turned on. Suddenly she was upside down. Something fell from her hand.

“Shit. Grab that,” a gruff male voice ordered.

“Got it.” That was definitely Mindy. A ball rattled in a metal can. What were they doing outside?

Oh, shit. She hadn’t handcuffed herself to the bed. She must have sleepwalked again. There was no telling where she had ended up.

“Go, go, go,” another male voice ordered. Claire bobbled upside down like a rag doll, smacking her face off a very broad back.

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