Page 22 of F*ck Steal Kill

This boring town had just gotten a whole lot more interesting. It was time for the Savages to come out and play.

I hunkered down behind the bush, pressing the binoculars against my face. After I’d come clean with the girls last night about my extracurricular activities, we’d devised a plan to uncover information about the three mysterious strangers who’d snagged my attention.

God, I loved them both. Instead of berating me for being careless, they grabbed a shovel and asked how deep to dig. My besties were simply the best.

We’d been following Boss Man, the one I believed to be in charge. I refused to call him mysterious eyes until I knew more about him. Giving him a cutesy nickname felt more familiar and intimate, and I couldn’t have that right now. He was just another mark we were gathering intel on.

Joy had hacked into the Inn’s system, discovering the names their rooms were under, but there wasn’t one ounce of me that believed he was a Bill. This man had a name that, when you moaned it, you felt it in your toes. No offense to any Bills, but that name just didn’t do it for me.

So far, the girls and I had followed him to the laundromat, bank, and now the grocery store. I suspected he knew we were watching and was leading us on a wild goose chase. No one did that many errands while on vacation.

“He’s placed a toothbrush, a jug of OJ, and a bag of hot chips in his basket so far,” Joy whispered over the comms. We’d figured she drew the least amount of attention in town, so she’d followed BM—okay, a funny nickname didn’t count as intimate—all morning. Joy was having fun changing her wig and appearance for each place she went. At least she was entertaining herself.

“Boss Man’s on to us,” Lacey grumbled. “No one buys those three things together on purpose. OJ and hot chips?” She shuddered. Lacey was perched on the hill with me, the grocery store below us. I was on the lookout to see if the other two joined him. So far, he’d been alone.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t mean he won’t reveal something. If anything, he’s trying to throw us off, which means there’s something to hide. He mentioned a trap and the Savages, exactly what Phantasm warned us about minutes earlier. We need to find out more.”

“I highly doubt this was what Phantasm meant about lying low,” Lacey muttered. I rolled my eyes, used to her attitude. She didn’t like to get dirty but was too volatile to tail someone.

“Technically, you’re lying high since you’re on a hill, and I’m standing low,” Joy replied, making me chuckle. Lacey rolled her eyes, but I caught her smile. Typical Joy swooping in to keep the peace.

“We might have to split up tomorrow and tail the three separately if we don’t find anything.”

“Are you sure you’re not overthinking this?” Lacey asked, turning to me. “It’s one of the few times you’ve liked someone, even if there are three of them. How do we know this isn’t a cry for help and you’ve gone full stalker? Or worse, you’re self-sabotaging and blowing it before it becomes anything. There’s only room for one of us to do that in our friendship, and I nabbed that fun little defense mechanism back in middle school.” She tutted at me, her eyes boring into the side of my face. My cheeks heated, but I kept my focus forward.

“I promise you I’m not doing any of those things. I did like them, but it was the way he said killer and then mentioned the Savages. They’re hunting someone, who could very likely be us, and after the same people mentioned on XOXO. It’s not a coincidence. You’re just crabby we’ve been out in the sun this long, my little vampire.”

Lacey tilted her head, nodding in agreement. “Eh, you might be right. God, I hate the outdoors. Why are there things that can crawl and sting? Seems like a waste. God should’ve used his skills to make nail polish that doesn’t chip or fade and make it instinctual that every man knows how to give good oral sex. I’ve had enough sloppy tongues for a lifetime. Just one of those things would be better than bugs.”

Her body convulsed as I muffled a laugh. Lacey was one of the toughest people I knew, but put a bug in front of her, and she’d scream and run away crying. I guess we all had that one thing we were scared of.

“It’s why you should only get oral from another woman. It’s way better,” Joy said over the comms, reminding us she was there. “Oh, he’s talking to someone. Let me see if I can get closer,” she whispered.

“I wish we had eyes inside,” I grumbled. I hated not being able to see where Joy was, but since we didn’t know his movements, it hadn’t been possible to set anything up beforehand. Surveillance outside the building was the best we could do.

“What if they’re not the bad guy?” Lacey whispered. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, wondering where she was going with this.

“What makes you think they’re not?”

She shrugged, picking a leaf off her sweater and jumping back when it fluttered. “You have the best bullshit detector out of the three of us. If you were genuinely attracted to them, enough to break your rules and let them see your real face and know your real name, it has to mean something.”

The rebuttal stopped cold on my lips as I let her words penetrate me. Had I? But that would mean… I shook my head, not wanting to entertain those thoughts.

“Max and the boss saw me at work. Not like I can hide who I am there. Quentin met me as a persona. I didn’t know he knew Max or that they’d come for me that night. And you said my name in Max’s presence,” I reminded.

She grimaced but didn’t stop. “Yeah, but you still went back to the Secret Keep with them as yourself.”

She had a point there. But it wasn’t enough to stop me from figuring out who they were and what they were doing here. I needed to know everything before I could make a decision. It was a flaw, my brain crawling over all the facts and always needing more.

“My BS detector doesn’t work anymore. That’s how this whole thing started, remember? I thought Calvin was a nice guy, and look where that got me. He tried to rape me and only failed because I’d eaten peanut butter for lunch.”

“By nice guy, I think you mean bland and boring,” Lacey said, ignoring the rest of my sentence. A man’s voice became clearer over the comms, meaning Joy was nearer to him. Zipping my lips, I rolled them in to stop myself from talking. I didn’t want to distract Joy. It had nothing to do with hearing his voice.

“Oh wow, that’s a long time to live in a town. What’s your favorite thing to do here from a local perspective?”

And there it was, that deep, dark, and delicious voice. It rolled through me, traveling down my body to my toes as they curled back from the sound. I pressed my lips harder, not wanting to embarrass myself by moaning in front of the girls.

The other voice was too quiet to pick up everything, but it sounded like Old Man Steve. Lacey tapped my hand, mouthing his name for confirmation. I nodded, pressing the comm further in my ear, hoping to pick up more.

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