Page 87 of Sin With Me

“Yes. You’ve been out for a while.”

“Am I at your house?”

“No, you’re not. But you’re safe.” A switch clicked and the lamp by the bed turned on. Lola leaned back against the wall and formed a bubble with the gum she was chewing. It popped, echoing through the modern room with prominently black furniture, white and gray fabric, and clean cut lines. Yeah, this was definitely not the kind of apartment I’d imagined my frivolous friend lived in. I’d never been to her home above the salon, but I knew that this couldn’t be it. From the look and smell of it, I was definitely not at the Bistro, either. Yet the manly scent was slightly familiar and I breathed it in again.

“Where amI?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

I searched through my mind. I remembered being at the church with Father Cameron. Cortez was there…

Shit!

“You tranquilizedme!”

“I prefer the word ‘sedated.’”

“What thehell?”

“I needed to be quick, and nothing says quick like a little jab in the arm. Well, chloroform, maybe.”

“Lola, you’re not making any sense.” My arm did hurt, though, and I did remember her sedating me, but my mind still felt fuzzy.

She let go of a reluctant sigh. “All right. Don’t freak out. The truth is that I knocked you out, and after a three-hour car ride, I packed your body on a private plane and kidnapped you to New York. Does that sound better?”

I wanted the other version.

“Ha!” I laughed. “Ha, ha!” My belly shook, and I even felt my shoulders join in the chuckles. “Ha! Nice one, Lola. Is this one of your pranks? You know, the way you set me up at a bar with a priest?”

She peeled her body away from the wall and approached me with a swagger I had never seen before. Lola sat down beside me on the bed and leaned in. I gasped at the gorgeous brown curls, which I would have never pictured as her hairdo.

“Honey, this is much better than a joke. It’s the truth. We’re done with the boring and moving on to the exciting.” She grinned, but she wasn’t laughing. Lola always laughed.

“Do you work for him?” I whispered.

“No, I don’t. I work for someoneelse.”

Had my friend played me? Had I fallen for the oldest trick in the book, and my enemy had kept me closer than a friend would? Did Cortez hire her? If he did, then everything I ever believed in was a lie. My instinct and my detective skills had failed me. I’d failedme.

“I trustedyou!”

“It was my job for you to trustme.”

“What is your job, exactly?”

“I work for Xavier Black.”

I gasped. “My father? My father’sdead.”

“Your father is missing. He gave me direct instructions to look out for you and your mother if he never returned.”

“He left for work over ten years ago. He was presumeddead.”

“Again – he’s missing. I wouldn’t assume otherwise unless you see the body. Even then, I’d check for a pulse. Now, I know all this makes me look a lot older than you, but I’m not. I promise.” She curled her hair around her finger and made another popping sound with her mouth. “A few years, maybe.”

“I don’t care how old you are,” Isaid.

“Yeah, but you should care about the experience I have, because if someone tells me to keep you safe, then that’s what I’ll do. Your father wanted to make sure that both you and your mother were taken care of. That’s why he hiredus.”

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