Page 28 of You Found Me

“Oh no.” She put down her half-empty smoothie. “The warden didn’t get to you too, did he?”

“No.” Greg shook his head for emphasis, but the look on his face wasn’t convincing.

“Come on, Greg. You agree with me, right? We’ve been holed up here for three weeks and nothing’s happened. They have no idea who left the letter, and there hasn’t been anything else. No notes, no emails, nothing. He probably got arrested or died or something. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a little bit of a deal.” Greg pointed at the smoothie. “Finish that. I added fiber and extra protein.”

Della glanced around her gilded cage. It was a nice house, but it wasn’t where she wanted to be. “I’m staying in the house or the pool area like I keep getting told to do, but nobody said anything about having people over. We know everyone who’s coming except the caterer, and you vetted them, right?”

“Yeah.” Greg raised his left eyebrow like Spock. “Drink.”

She drained the rest of the smoothie like it was a shot of whiskey. “I’m going to scrounge up some pool toys. You make sure the security guys are all on board.”

He gave her a doubtful look, but she could tell he’d do what she asked. He always did.

She patted his arm. “Get the fun police out of your head. It’ll be fine because you’re here. Nobody wants to tangle with you.”

He snorted. “Right.”

Marshall Weston arrived at her front door with a girl on his arm and a caravan of party people behind him.

Marshall gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Who’s ready to party?”

“You brought people!” Della threw her arms around him with glee and squeezed him like the lifeline he was. “I knew I could count on you.”

His arms tightened around her. “Always.”

Della released Marshall and glanced behind him at the line of cars that stretched past the tree line. Every car had multiple people in it. “Wow. That’s more than a handful. Did you bring the entire cast?”

“What can I say, I’m a fun magnet,” Marshall said with that proud tilt to his chin that made him irresistible in rom-coms. “When they told me you had to lay low, I wondered how long it would last. My bet was on three days.”

“I made it longer than you would have. I’ve been herethree weeks.”

“Epic,” Marshall conceded with a grudging nod. “I’d have caved the first night.”

“You’d have caved the first hour,” she teased.

Marshall’s date leaned into him with a he’s-mine look. “What do you mean ‘lay low’?”

“Oh, nothing.” Marshall planted a kiss on his girlfriend’s cheek, which she received like the princess she probably thought she was. “Della, meet Larissa. She’s playing the lead inShout at the Moon, and she’s fantastic.”

Della gave the woman what she hoped was a friendly I-don’t-want-your-man look. “Be sure to keep this one away from the vodka. It makes him crazy.”

“Hey,” Marshall protested, “it’s way too sunny for vodka. Pool parties demand a frosty cold one. Catering brought all the essentials, right? I told them to go overboard.”

“There’s plenty of frosty-cold everything. Head on back to the pool.” Della beamed and waved everyone through the door. “Have fun, you two.”

She liked Marshall. Their brief time together had been filled with a lot of laughs, a lot of sex, and not much else. They were too much alike to work as a couple.

Della turned her attention to the long line of arrivals, greeting them with the enthusiasm of a people person who’d been cooped up way too long.

After fifteen minutes of meet and greet, Greg murmured in her ear. “Do you know all these people?”

She glanced at him. “Some. You should recognize that group over by the hedge. They’re some of my roadies.”

“That’s five people. What about the rest?”

She gave a half-hearted shrug. “They came with Marshall. That guy there, the short one with spiked hair, was in Piper’s last movie. Think his name is Ralph. Ralph…something.”

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