Page 64 of Locke

She pointed her thumb at the bag, looking me over like I was drugged out. “In there.”

I stared at the nearly empty bag, my skin prickling. No way. What the fuck was she talking about? Impossible. I approached the bag like there was a giant spider inside it and peeked in quickly like it might jump the fuck out. My heart crashed in my chest as a whirlwind of shock slammed into me. I let out a breathless squeak, my eyes saucer wide because I saw it. I saw my phone. I looked at Sylvia, waiting for her to laugh and tell me she put it there, but she was slowly stepping away from me, seriously disturbed by my behaviour.

“What’s going on with you?” she whispered cautiously.

I wrung my hands together, trying to explain, but coming short because I couldn’t tell her a damn thing. “I just…I didn’t have it on me, Syl.”

“Well, you must have because it’s in your grocery bag.”

“But I didn’t put it there.”

She gave me another peculiar look. “You’re freaking me out. Did you take something?”

“What?”

“Like…are you on something?”

What?

I shook my head, too gobsmacked to respond.

I wasn’t on something, but it felt like the room was growing smaller, like the walls were closing in on me.

“I’m going to do a load of laundry,” she suddenly said in that disturbed tone, but I was too distracted to even look at her.

A few minutes later she was out the door, and I was still standing in the kitchen, eyeing the bag like it was going to give me the bubonic plague.

“Quit being a little bitch,” I told myself, even though I felt faint.

I approached the bag again and stuck my hand inside. I pulled the phone out and spun it around my hand, wondering how it got there.

But I knew straightaway.

And I felt like a such a fool.

It wasn’t my fault.

Honestly.

How could I have known?

He was in jeans, not a suit, and for some strange reason it didn’t compute that Max fucking Locke might be slamming into me, helping me collect my groceries wearing a baseball cap and jeans, even talking to me—bold motherfucker—as he slipped my phone into my groceries. I should have recognized that voice—he had the most sensual voice—but I had barely paid attention.

“We both made this mess, didn’t we?”

Now I knew he wasn’t referring to that mess on the street.

Now I was sure he was playing games with me.

Nineteen

Locke

A little twist here, a little pull there.

It was easy to fuck with someone’s life. Locke played with his victims like it was sport. Sent them on a run, and he relished in the chase.

But this was a different sort of chase he was craving.

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