Page 135 of In Case You Didn't Know
“This is what happens when you tell lies,” he says like he’s a school teacher.
Hudson looks at me. “Skyler and Jesse swapped phones,” he says. “To throw us off.”
West actually starts to laugh. The asshole.
I look at his phone again. There’s no doubt about it. That dot is still moving and it’s getting closer.
Skyler – and possibly Francie – are heading toward New York.
Hudson lets out a low whistle. “Skyler’s going to kill me,” he says. “For not telling her what’s going on. And I’m going to kill her for doing this with our baby inside of her.”
West finally puts his pen down, grinning like it’s Christmas morning.
“Well this should be fun,” he says.
Fun isn’t exactly the word I’d use.
Disaster would work better. Catastrophe even more.
I rub a hand down my face, the truth of the situation hitting me like a sucker punch to the gut.
I can feel it. Francie’s coming here to New York.
And she’s going to find out everything.
About the videos. The blackmail.
The fact I lied to her face.
God, what if she walks away? What if I lose her?
Not because of the breach, or the videos, or Annalise’s bullshit. But because I was too much of a coward to let her in.
I stare at the moving dot once more. It’s coming straight for me.
And so is she.
thirty-six
FRANCIE
“What do you mean you think Hudson knows about us?” Skyler demands, one hand on her hip, the other holding her phone like she’s about to bludgeon it into submission. We’re on our third rest break of the trip. Turns out a gallon full of coffee and small bladders don’t mix.
On the other end of the call, Jesse starts stammering. “He just… asked a lot of questions. You know what he’s like. It’s like being grilled by the Spanish Inquisition. Except worse. And more Hudson like.”
“So what did you tell him?” Skyler asks.
“Nothing. But he knows. I know he knows. He knows I know he knows…”
I wince, because there are way too many knows in that sentence. It needs a good editor.
Skyler lets out a sigh. “Is Ayda okay?”
“Having the time of her life. I just let her paint my nails.”
“That’s nice. What color?” she asks, like we’re not on a two-woman mission to stop the idiots we love from doing idiot things.
Whatever they are.
