Page 39 of Four Steps to the Perfect Fake Date

Daphne blinked. “Do you ... do this often?”

“Notoften,” Greta said, wiping her glasses on her shirt before sliding them back on, which answered precisely nothing.

Daphne had just opened her mouth to prod the ladies once more about their extracurricular activities when the gates to the Yarrow mansion swung open, and a familiar truck drove out and turned onto the street.

A breath gasped out of Daphne’s lips. She tried to slouch down in her seat and choked herself on her seat belt. The three older ladies, oblivious to her panic, stared at Flint’s truck while making no attempt to conceal themselves.

“Go!” Daphne choked out. “Go!”

“Go where, honey?” Mabel asked, leaning over to get a better look at the truck.

“Go somewhere! Away! Not here!”

The truck approached their position. Was it Daphne’s imagination, or did it slow down?

No. Not her imagination.

The truck stopped.

“Uh-oh,” said Harry.

The driver’s door opened, and a booted foot landed on the pavement.

“Might be time to skedaddle,” Mabel pointed out.

“You know, I think I agree with you,” Greta said, and reached for the ignition.

Calvin Flint took a step toward them, his gaze flicking from the damaged front bumper of Greta’s car to the windows, where he could definitely see the four of them staring at him with wide eyes.

“Hang on, ladies,” Greta said, and she slammed on the accelerator. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air as their wheels spun on the pavement; then Greta’s old beige Honda was off like a shot down the quiet residential street.

Chapter 15

“Who’s that?” Ceecee asked, her face stuck between the two front seats as she looked through the rear window.

“I’m not sure,” Calvin replied, but he had a fair idea. He buckled himself in and checked on his sister. “Face the front, Ceecee. We’ll go see what they wanted.”

“A car chase?” Her face lit up as she bounced on the seat.

“Something like that,” he said, and swung the truck around to follow Greta’s Honda. He could have sworn Daphne had been sitting in the back seat. But what would she be doing outside his mother’s house?

“They went that way,” his little sister said, pointing. “I saw them turn.”

“Good work, kiddo,” Calvin said, taking the turn. The Honda’s taillights turned in the distance. They were heading toward town.

“Catch them!” his little sister urged, one hand gripping the door, the other curled around the edge of her seat. “This is way better than the movies.”

Calvin hummed and followed the road, though he’d lost sight of the other car. “You don’t mind doing this? We can still go to the movies.”

“No way,” his sister said. “I want to see why they were spying on us.”

“We don’t know that they were spying,” he said, but his eyes narrowed. He was pretty sure Daphnehadbeen spying on him, along with her grandmother and company. Had they followed him to the house? Why?

Heart thumping, Calvin turned toward Carlisle. He grimaced when there was no sight of Greta’s car. Ceecee looked around, peering down every cross street, her feet kicking as she did.

“You see them?” he asked.

“No. They got away.” Her eyes were wide as she glanced over at him, disappointment clearly written on her face. “What are we going to do?”

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