Page 25 of Obsession

She nods. “Look, there may not be in our world—in the practical world we both inhabit—but in hers? There are. And it’s noteworthy.”

I give her this and don’t argue again.

After scouring Skylar’s room and the rest of the apartment, I get directions for Bubbles and Broomsticks. Back in the truck, Violet frowns as she fiddles with Skylar’s phone. She’s tried her birthday, her astrological sign, every obvious password she could think of, and finally locks herself out of it for fifteen minutes.

“Damn it,” she mutters, scowling. She takes her own phone out. “Have you noticed that your sister’s companions are all sort of outcasts? You’ve got Lottie, who’s sweet but wears glasses, is overweight and dresses in costumes. Probably not the most popular girl in her class. Were all her friends sort of unpopular?”

“Mhm.”

I flick on the directionals and take a left.

“Like… the boyfriend who’s essentially androgynous, and I bet if we investigated her other friends, we’d find something similar.”

I nod, not sure how this has anything to do with the case.

“Our goal right now is to bring back everything we can to my men. Tonight, we’ll go over every detail and see what we can piece together.”

“Your men. That sounds so…” Her voice trails off.

“So what?”

“Like, masculine.”

I grunt. “What should I call them? My employees?”

She shrugs and gets a little haughty. “It’s just that they’re not all men anymore.”

I look at her full breasts, her petite little body, and those pursed lips I want to kiss. “They’re definitely not.”

I pull up onto the highway, twenty minutes out from the restaurant we need to investigate. A car whizzes past us so closely, Violet screams. It hits my left tire, ricochets forward, and I have to slam on my brakes to keep it steady.

Violet gasps. “What was that?” I’m already accelerating, following the small black Mazda.

“Are you road raging after them?”

“Me? Road rage? What makes you think I have road rage?”

I’ll fucking kill them.

“That was not an accident,” Violet says. She’s sitting straight up next to me, hands on the dash. “They so did that on purpose.”

I’m gaining on them, as they take a sharp right and exit the highway.

“Uh yeah, no reason,” she says with a grimace as I follow them off the highway. Horns blare as the light turns red and I plow through it, gaining on them. Someone flips me the bird. The truck’s too big to chase them too closely.

“Get the plate,” I tell her.

“On it.”

The car zigzags in and out of traffic, way too quickly for my huge truck to follow them. I curse under my breath.

“This is not a good getaway car,” she mutters.

“No, but it off-roads like a motherfucker and there isn’t a better place to be when the shit hits the fan.” The glass is shatterproof, the wheels reinforced and nearly invincible. I could mow down a goddamn semi if I had to.

“You can’t chase them now, though.” She mumbles something under her breath.

“What was that?”

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