Page 54 of Luck of the Devil
“You gonna take screenshots of the woman and the guys who broke in the first time?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll send a screenshot of the woman to my mother’s friends, and I’ll send all the videos to Carter.”
“Good.” He nodded to the concrete block building across the lot. “I suggest we go to the bathroom since we’re so close to your grandparents’ house.”
I drew a breath to settle my nerves. “Good idea.”
“You hungry?”
I lifted a brow in surprise. “Are you?”
“No, just checking on you. We can stop and get something to eat. We got delayed with construction traffic when we went through Little Rock so it’s later than I expected it would be.”
I glanced at the clock on his screen, surprised to see it was already a little after two. “I’m not hungry.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
I got out and strode to the restroom, unnerved by the way he was considering my needs, but the thought of Big Bad James Malcolm going to therapy quickly took over. How did that work? Was it like The Sopranos? Or more like Ozark, where the therapist didn’t know what the patient did, and when she found out…
But if Malcolm could not only go to therapy but recommend it, it made me wonder if I should give it serious consideration.
I quickly squashed the thought. This wasn’t a self-help mission. I was on the hunt for a killer.
But something in the back of my head whispered, “Why can’t it be both?”
Chapter 15
Unsurprisingly, Malcolm was already in the car by the time I came out. He must have raided a vending machine, because he had a couple of bottled waters, multiple bags of assorted chips, and some Oreo and Nutter Butter cookies.
“Oh,” I said, picking up the package of Nutter Butters. “I haven’t had these in years.”
“Maybe I wanted those,” he said with a laugh as he started the car and headed toward the highway.
“Then you should have hidden them.” I picked up the laptop again and put in my mother’s password to wake it up. While I nibbled on the cookies, I transferred the videos to the laptop, then worked on isolating still images of the mystery woman and the two men. When I was done, I sent the pictures and the videos to Carter in a text with an explanation of what they were. He quickly responded that he’d get on it.
I was in the process of trying to determine which of my mother’s friends to send the woman’s image to when my phone rang. I picked it up and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the number on the screen.
Mason Deveraux really wanted to talk to me.
That was not a good sign.
I silenced the call and let it ring, not wanting to let Deveraux know I’d screened his call.
“Not gonna take that?” Malcolm asked, his hand draped over the steering wheel.
Opening the laptop, I started to connect it to my phone hotspot. “I’m sure it was spam.”
He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, and I wondered if he’d seen the number on my screen when Deveraux had called earlier. The caller ID didn’t give his name away, but all he’d have to do was give the number to Carter. He’d probably find out who the caller was in a matter of seconds.
What would Malcolm do if he knew I’d called Deveraux for information about him? Would he be mad enough to leave me on the side of the road? Would he kill me? How well did I really know him? I knew he valued loyalty, and he would see calling Deveraux as the epitome of disloyalty.
But strangely, I was less worried for my safety and more worried about losing his respect and his friendship.
Dear Lord. Did I have Stockholm Syndrome?
I kept my gaze on the computer screen, resting on my fingers on the track pad. “I asked you before how many people you’d killed,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “But you didn’t answer.”
“You think I have an answer.” He gave me a devilish grin. “Maybe I lost count.”
