Page 52 of The Love Bandits

I shouldn’t care, but I understand. When I lived with Todd, I kept a little shoebox on the top shelf of my closet. He would have thought the things in that box were trash—an old hat with a feather in it that Claire had gotten me at a secondhand store one year because it reminded her of Robin Hood, a perfectly smooth stone I’d found at the beach, and that fifty dollar bill that Marjorie Eccles had given me. Never spent. That box had been my touchstone. It had been the only piece of my soul that was mine, mostly untouched by him.

“I have to go to the store,” I say. “Do you need anything?”

Nicole turns and gives me a scrutinizing look. “You’d have to drive to Asheville to find a grocery still open this late.”

“Jake needs laxatives. He says he has a chronic problem.”

Might as well throw him under the bus.

The look on Nicole’s face suggests she doesn’t believe me but is amused by the lie.

“By all means. There will be no intestinal blockages on our watch. Still…if you get it into your head to make a pit stop and do something potentially dangerous, I’d suggest bringing a friend. Claire and Declan aren’t back yet, but I saw the Jeep next door.”

The car Rosie’s been using.

“Maybe I’ll see if Rosie wants to come,” I agree. “I could ask her if anything else happened at Smith House.”

Nicole grins at me and taps her temple. “Great minds.”

She obviously knows I’m up to something, and is letting it lie. Which reminds me again of what she said the other day.I trust you.

Guilt claws at my throat. “I—”

“Goodnight, Lainey,” Nicole says with ashut the fuck uplook.

Damien nods to me too, and with that, they’re climbing the stairs; they’re gone.

And I’m left in the foyer with my thoughts twisted into another pretzel. Why didn’t she want me to tell her what I was doing? Nicole is usually as nosy as I am.

Shaking it off, I collect a handful of black trash bags from the kitchen, grab the keys from the drawer, and go next door to collect Rosie.

The Jeep is there, as advertised, but it takes Rosie several minutes to come to the door after I ring the bell. Finally, she flings it open, her skin flushed, her hair loose around her shoulders. She still hasn’t changed out of the Red Lobster-esque uniform. “You’re here!”

“Uh, yeah,” I say, wondering if I interrupted something. “You’re all…” I gesture to her pink skin, the film of sweat on her brow. “Did you smuggle a guy in because Claire and Declan are out?”

She makes a dismissive sound. “Please. Anthony’s friends are all stuffed suits. I was just cleaning.”

At eleven p.m. on a Saturday?

From what Claire has told me, she’s not a fastidious roommate when it comes to that sort of thing.

Something’s up with her, but I don’t call her on it. She obviously doesn’t want to be straight with me, and I keep too many secrets to resent hers

“That was some game of hide and seek, huh?” Rosie continues. “It got pretty scandalous. One of the dudes got caught with another dude’s wife, getting it on in a closet, and this other guy tripped and twisted his ankle. He seemed pretty salty about it until Mrs. Rosings said she’d ‘personally handle any medical bills.’ I know a payoff when I smell one. And Mrs. Rosings’s daughter actually showed up after all that fuss, or at least I think she did. I saw someone who looks like her photo behind the house.”

“What, seriously?” I ask, feeling mental whiplash. “When?”

Rosie’s face scrunches up. “It happened sometime after the lights went off.”

My mind latches onto that detail.After. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t arrive before that and keep herself hidden away. Someone could probably hide in Smith House for twenty years without anyone realizing it. At the same time, I know Anthony was the one who cut the lights. So if Emma took the necklace, were they in on it together?

Rosie shoves my arm. “I heard you went home with the hot therapist.” Her eyes avert to my house, to the light gleaming in the guest bedroom. “Or didhego home withyou?Is he there now?” Her gaze finds the trash bags stuffed into my purse. “Please tell me you’re not here because you killed him and need help dismembering his body. I’ve been on my feet all evening.”

A laugh escapes me. “That’s not why I’m here. But I did want to talk to you about him.”

Her gaze narrows. “I have to say you don’t look like a woman who had her world rocked.”

“I’m not.” But I could have been. I almost was, and my core aches painfully from the orgasm that wasn’t—the need pulsing through me on repeat, like a song that won’t leave your head. His offer has been spiraling through my mind too.If you decide to stop thinking and start acting, you know where I’ll be. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

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