Page 126 of The Savior

“You haven’t.” She needed to buy time, needed to check her surroundings. “This is unexpected.”

“Is it?” Zee Zee studied the pear then held it close to her lips. “You know me better than that— Or maybe you don’t know me at all.”

Chelsea gaged how quickly she could nab Zee Zee. It wasn’t as if she could simply ask her to turn around and put her hands behind her back.What, then?Chelsea could ask the Apple Lady for the burlap garland that decorated the fruit stand to secure Zee Zee’s wrist.

Zee Zee would run.Won’t she?“Why are you here?” It made absolutely no sense.

“Those fucking calla lilies,” Zee Zee offered instead. “God, I hate those things.”

Chelsea did, too, but she wasn’t sure that commiserating over flowers would help her understand.

Zee Zee narrowed her eyes. “You do too.”

That wasn’t a question. Chelsea’s skin prickled.

“Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe I’ve studied you as much as you’ve studied me?”

“No.” Chelsea hoped she was feigning the same level of confidence that Zee Zee seemed to exude. “I assumed your time was spent on more sinister thoughts.”

“Sinister?” Zee Zee raised an eyebrow. “It’s just a game.”

A game. Explosion after explosion over the course of years, and it was just a sick, twisted hobby. “How about we end it now?”

Zee Zee pointed her pear toward their feet. A lone paper bag with its top neatly folded over and stapled rested along a parking space line. “You have two guesses as to what’s in there.”

Panic bottomed in Chelsea’s stomach. Still, she kept her face blank. “Honey buns?”

Zee Zee cocked her head and laughed. “I think we have the same sense of humor too.”

“What does that mean?” Chelsea asked.

“For everything you got, for every single opportunity you didn’t relish, you would think,” Zee Zee snarled, “that you’d have learned something.”

Chelsea swallowed over the knot in her throat.Why was the conversation so personal? “What I do know is that you’ve never targeted a farmer’s market, and I don’t think you’ll start today.”

Zee Zee bit into the pear again and chewed slowly. “Actually, that’s your choice.”

Chelsea skipped the semantics. Everything they knew about Zee Zee seemed to be wrong. “What do you want? ”

“You to look in the bag.”

“Do I need to?” she asked. “Either it’s there, or it’s not.”

The Apple Lady came over, smiled, then asked Zee Zee, “Can I help you?”

The woman on top of the US Marshal’s Most Wanted Fugitive List nailed a fake smile and saccharine sweetness. “The only one who can help me is Chelsea.”

“Oh.” Confusion crossed the soft lines on her forehead. “Then I’ll let you be.”

Chelsea wanted to scream,Run!The farmer’s market needed to be evacuated. “Let everyone leave. Then it’s just you and me.”

Zee Zee reached into her back pocket then dangled a dead man’s switch. “If you make one move to alert anyone…”

The switch hadn’t been activated. That was Chelsea’s only saving grace.

The little girl from earlier tore by, dragging a large cinnamon broom as her mother trailed behind her, laughing.

Chelsea wanted to weep for them and for everyone nearby. “Just you and me.”

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