Page 18 of Too Late

I push my hand against my jaw and pop my neck. “I’ll be out back. Let me know as soon as Sloan gets here.”

TWELVE

CARTER

Asa walks out the back door and I grip the back of my neck and squeeze. “Shit!”

“I know,” Dalton says, not having any clue as to what’s actually going through my mind at the moment.

“I need to make a phone call,” I tell him. “Wait in here and make sure they don’t get into it again.” I walk out the front door and head straight to my car. I pull my phone from my pocket and scroll through the numbers, checking for Sloan’s. Dalton said he entered everyone’s number who lives here into my phone once I was assigned this job. I scroll through the S’s but don’t see her name. Just as I’m about to throw my phone out of frustration, the contactAsa’s girlcatches my eye. I press it. I press it over and over, willing it to dial faster.

I hold the phone to my ear and listen as it rings. On the fourth ring, she finally picks up.

“Hello?”

“Sloan!” I say her name desperately.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Lu … Carter. It’s Carter.”

She sighs heavily into the phone.

“No, don’t hang up,” I say, hoping she holds on long enough to hear I’m not just calling her to apologize again. “He knows. He knows you went to lunch today on Ricker Road.”

She doesn’t say anything for several quiet seconds.

“You told him?” she asks, her voice full of hurt.

“No. No, I would never … I heard Jon say something about finding out who you were with at lunch. He doesn’t know it was me.”

I glance behind me, making sure I’m still in the clear. Dalton is standing at the window watching me.

“But … how could he know?” she asks, fear in her voice.

“Maybe he tracks your phone,” I say. “Where are you?”

“I just left the gym. I’m five minutes away. Carter, what do I do? He’ll kill me.”

The fear in her voice makes me regret every second of today. I should have never put her in this situation.

“Listen to me. The box of pizza is still in my back seat. I’ll keep him occupied out back. When you get here, grab the pizza and bring it to the backyard. Act like you have nothing to hide. Tell him you were hungry so you went out to a restaurant for lunch and bought a pizza and then offer us some. If you bring it up first, you should be fine.”

“Okay,” she says, breathing heavily. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I say back.

Several silent seconds pass and my pulse slowly begins to regulate.

“Sloan?”

“Yeah?” she whispers.

“I won’t let him hurt you.”

She’s quiet for a moment. I hear her sigh, then the call is dropped. I look down at my phone and take a deep breath, then head inside.

“Who was that?” Dalton asks, eyeing me curiously when I walk back through the door. “Hottie from Spanish?”

---