Page 66 of Twisted Assist

"The luck of the draw," I mumbled, my head spinning with those tiny questions. How did I land the Inferno contract so quickly? "You must have primed them for me."

"Which is why I can't figure out why Sophia took me off the job."

"Look," I stood up, wanting to clear the air. "I'm sorry if I—"

"No," she smiled. "Sophia has her reasons and she's the head of this company for a reason. I trust her and don't need an explanation."

All I could do was nod and sit back down. Sophia had her reasons, but it wasn't a card I actually wanted to play. Even if it cost me my job, I didn't want to expose Tripp's negligence and indecency at the club that night.

With Tina walking away, I pulled my camera out and connected it to my computer. Images filled my screen, and I immediately got to work, putting some in the files for Sophia and some in a private file for me.

It took hours to sort through them all, and the office had cleared out by the time I looked up. The time in the corner of my screen said six p.m., and my tummy rumbling told me it was time for dinner.

Shutting everything down, I made my way back out to my car, yawning and dragging my feet. The heels I had on clicked across the pavement, echoing into the empty parking garage. I was never the last one out of the office, and the eerie feeling that washed over me made me start walking a little faster.

It wasn't quite dark, but it was dark enough inside the parking garage that anyone could have been hiding anywhere.

"Dammit," I scolded myself, letting the notes from Hunter get inside my head. He was crazier than he used to be but not crazy enough to hurt me. Was he?

Pulling out my keys, I unlocked my car and hurried in, locking the doors quickly. Breathing a sigh of relief, I cranked the engine and started to back out of the parking space. But an alarm in my car started blaring, and I looked to the dash to see what was wrong.

"Low tire?"

In my haste to get in my car, I didn't look at my tires, but the dash told me my right front tire had 3 PSI. That wouldn't get me anywhere.

Making sure no one was around, I climbed from my car and noticed that the right front tire was slashed. Not a nail or screw but an intentional slash that made driving anywhere a bigger risk than standing alone in that parking garage.

Without hesitating any further, I ran toward the stairs and down to the main floor, exiting onto the busy sidewalk. All the people around me made me feel safer, but it didn't last long. A feeling washed over me like I was being watched, and I knew Hunter was trying to creep me out.

"It's working!" I cried a little too loud, making everyone stop walking and look at me.

The crazy part was, had I not known it was Hunter, I'd have called him first for help. Together or not, he lived close by and would have been the first one to come and help me.

That wasn't what I wanted to do, though. Not anymore. It may have been presumptuous, but I knew Tripp would help me. In fact, I didn't want to wait. I wanted to run to him and tell him what was going on.

My phone was in my bag, which was in my car, so I couldn't call him without going back up there, and that wasn't happening. So I pulled the cash I kept in my bra and waved down a taxi. It had been so long since I took a cab anywhere that I wasn't even sure what the cost would be, but I'd deal with that when I got where I was going.

"South Beach," I told the driver quickly. "Nikki's."

ChapterThirty-Three

Tripp

It had been months since Rhys and I surfed together. He wasn’t quite as into it as I was, and with him being nine years older, he usually found better things to do. But when I told him in the locker room that I was heading to the waves, he practically begged me to let him tag along. Not that I let Rhys do anything; Rhys did what he wanted. Which was why when I waved him off, he came anyway.

He didn’t have a membership to the Nikki’s, but again, he was Rhys Peyton. He walked up, and they practically rolled out a red carpet for him. It kind of made me sick how they treated him like a king when I knew for a fact he could burp the alphabet.

“This is how I like to surf,” he sighed with contentment.

We were laying on our boards past the break, looking into the dimming sky. The sun was behind us, setting in the west, making the water look dark and ominous.

“When are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“I can’t like surfing?”

“You like being with Ash more.”

“Can’t argue with that. But she’s studying, and I’ve kinda been a shitty captain this year. I wanna make up for it.”

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