Page 44 of Devious Gambit

“There’s a list. There was one event where more than one crime was committed.”

She gulped. “Write down the worst.”

I made a warning hissing sound with my mouth as I wrote it down. Gallagher’s a sweetie, she’s likely to be shocked and upset when she reads it, so I wasn’t finding it easy. It could totally mess with her head and turn her even more sullen than she already was.

I folded the notepaper over and handed it to her and she shoved it into her pocket.

“You’re not going to open it now?” I asked her.

“I process bad news better alone.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

She nodded slowly.

I wasn’t feeling good about this. Apparently, I had a conscience. I took my baseball cap off and ran my fingers through my hair, delaying my departure. “Message me if you need someone to talk to.”

“Okay.”

Still, I struggled to move. “Are you working tonight?”

“No.”

“I’ll bring dinner over. Be at yours at 6pm,” I told her.

“You’re very good at inviting yourself,” she pointed out. “I mean, you don’t even ask me if I want to see you again.”

“I assumed you would, since you gave me eleven out of ten for sucking your muff.”

She made a ticking sound with her mouth and turned away from me in embarrassment.

I touched her thigh as light as a feather and gently ran my knuckles back and forth along her leg. “Anyway, I’ll leave you with your bit of paper and I’ll see you tonight. Okay?”

She turned into my direction, shyly avoiding my eye and nodded. I took the opportunity to take her chin in my hand and kissed her lips again.

Everything was slowly falling into place. I had five weeks to sort this shit out, before Cody stepped in. Rhys had no idea what was coming. Once she finds out, she’s going to think I’m the biggest asshole this side of Michigan.

I turned back to look at her when I was a few feet away, expecting to see her reading her father’s crime. Instead, she was staring into the small wood, barely moving. It was hard to read her expression from that distance, but she was probably a million miles away, as usual.

EIGHTEEN

Rhys

I saw someone staring at us.

He was standing in the small cluster of bushes and trees, and at first I mistook him for tree trunk until he moved and I caught the whites of his eyes. After Mr. Ed left, he stepped closer, the light catching his face just before he ducked behind a tree. I had to keep looking at him just to clarify in my mind who I was looking at. My eyes had deceived me, as I thought Sweeney had risen from the dead.

When he stepped out of the shadows of the wood, he glared at me like a deranged rabies dog, enormous and foreboding. “Did you snitch?” he accused.

“No.” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but he was creeping me out.

“You went to the police. Said I was one of the men that hurt that girl behind the gym. I wasn’t even there. Got an alibi.” Obviously, he was insane because I did see him that night.

I frowned. “No.”

He stood over me, arms folded over his broad chest, eyeballs rolling around in his skull. “You wanted him dead, didn’t you?”

“What are we talking about now?” I asked him. He seemed spun out on something, practically frothing at the mouth.

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