Page 83 of Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbi 3)

I climbed into the car and Aiden tore out of the garage before I was even safely strapped in. There were already families outside drinking hot chocolate and cider, Christmas music blaring. It wasn’t dark yet, but the Christmas light competition festivities had already begun. The whole neighborhood would be filled with lights, costumes, and tons of drunk parents until well past midnight. It was the biggest neighborhood party of the year. A tradition I used to love. One that I’d actually miss.

I watched my house disappear in the rearview mirror. And for just a second, I wondered if maybe this year I would have won. Aiden turned left out of the neighborhood. I thought I’d feel better when we got out. But my heart was still racing.

I glanced at Aiden out of the corner of my eye. Maybe my heart was racing because I still had no idea who he was. I pulled Snuggle Muffins onto my lap. We’ll be okay, boy. No matter what happens, I promise we’ll be okay.

He sniffed my coat pocket and I moved him away from it. The last thing I needed was for Snuggle Muffins to eat Detective Torres’ thumb. It was the key to getting my money back. I pulled out some dog food to preoccupy him.

“Do you still have my phone?” I asked Aiden. I had my whole life to question him. Right now I needed to figure out if my mutilating Detective Torres’ body was all for nothing.

He kept his foot on the gas as he shifted to pull it out of his pocket. I grabbed it and stealthily switched it with the one in my pocket. And I even more stealthily put Detective Torres’ dead thumb to it. The screen unlocked.

“I’m going to bring up some directions,” I said as I opened up Detective Torres’ emails.

“Sounds good,” he said.

I held the screen away from him and searched. “Turn right up here to get onto I-95.” I’d already memorized the route to Mexico. I didn’t need directions. I continued to scroll through Detective Torres’ emails.

There was only one email starred on the whole page. That seemed like a good place to start, so I clicked on it.

“We’re running low on supplies again.”

-T

T? Who the hell is T? T. The letter rolled around in my head. T. My mind stopped spinning when I remembered why I wanted Detective Torres’ phone in the first place. T for…Tremblay? It was definitely possible. Detective Torres had acted so weird whenever I brought up Canada. Like he was hiding something. I copied the email address into the search bar but no other emails from that address appeared. Why would Sophia Tremblay be emailing Detective Torres?

“You look pale,” Aiden said. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I thought about Noah’s finger shoved down my bra. And Detective Torres’ finger hidden in my coat pocket. No, I wasn’t okay. I wanted Sophia’s address, not…this. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. What if Detective Torres was in on it?

My fingers shook as I continued scrolling through the phone. But there were no more starred emails. So I started at the beginning, opening and closing each one, searching for any more mention of T.

Aiden sped up as we merged onto I-95. We were getting farther and farther away, but I didn’t feel like I was any closer to the truth. And then I found an email worse than the one mentioning T.

“We got A now. The plan’s a go. It’s time.”

-T

T for Tremblay. And A for…what? I glanced at the man beside me, who claimed to love me. The man who knew my favorite color. The man who had studied a file on me. A man that had changed his face for my husband. But…what if he hadn’t changed it for my husband? What if there was some other plan behind his copied face? A could easily stand for…Aiden.

My head spun and so did my stomach. I felt like I was going to be sick.

We got A now. The plan’s a go. It’s time. Did that mean that they had Aiden on board with the plan? But what plan?

I looked at the time stamp on the email. It was sent on Friday morning. Aiden had called me Friday afternoon for our bar date. The plan.

I tried to duck my head so Aiden couldn’t examine me. Aiden knew he wasn’t Noah. He knew that Noah had been MIA for days. So why hadn’t he knocked Detective Torres out when I was being arrested? Unless… I stole another sideways glance at Aiden. Unless he was in on it too.

Snuggle Muffins sighed.

I know, boy. He didn’t have to spell it out for me. Aiden was leading me into a trap. I could feel it in my bones.

Chapter 31

Monday

Aiden turned on the radio, blasting cheery Christmas music through the car.

The music was too loud when my mind was already screaming. All I could feel was Noah’s severed finger pressed against my chest. I needed to make up my mind about what to do before we made it any closer to Mexico.

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