Page 138 of Poison Aches

Ahh, he’s the fuckhead Astraea and Kimberly were talking about at Ivy’s dinner party. The shithead that thinks he’ll be having his way with Angel.

“What did you find?”

“That Jackson Geffreys came into existence over a year ago, sir.”

At that, I grab the file Ty offers and flip through the crap in there.

What the hell has Angel been doing?

“What shall we do, sir?”

I continue reading the full details in the file, then I toss the file onto my desk and pick up the contract in the black envelope, the same one Angel tossed at me when she refused to sign it.

“She’ll go upstate tonight, won’t she?” I ask Ty.

“Yes, sir.”

“And my cousin?”

“He’s getting ready to go, sir,” Kai responds curtly.

“Well, it looks like there’ll be fireworks tonight.”

I grab five bottles of pills that I have to pop every few hours and tonight, I need all the juice I can get.

“Let’s prepare.”

“Yes, sir,” they both reply.

IVY

“So?” Grammy starts.

“So?”

“You know what I’m asking. How is Baltimore?”

I balance my phone between my shoulder and ear as I try on the shoes I just bought from Zara.

After moving in a few hours ago, I went out to buy cleaning supplies.

I gagged over ten times, and scrubbed the floors five times, then deep-cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen just as much.

I won’t be sleeping here tonight—or ever—but I still asked the landlady to take the bed and couch after I found dead insects and something else I refused to examine closely.

I’m still a bit traumatized and a lot disgusted by this place, but at Grammy’s question, I immediately perk up.

She has this uncanny ability of fishing out lies in the simplest of responses.

“Oh, it’s so-so,” I murmur, staring at my iPad camera.

The mirror in the bathroom is cracked at the corners and down the middle. I won’t get into the superstition of that, so this is the only way I can check my outfit and makeup.

“The apartment was very dirty when I found it, so I had some cleaning up to do.”

“Even if it was clean, you’d still clean it twice over before you even sit down.” Grammy chuckles softly.

“It’s disgusting to just start living in a place a total stranger used to live in without cleaning it! You taught me that.”

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