Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“Dexter is waiting on you in the parking lot,” Smith supplies. “The maid says some guy paid her five hundred bucks to shove the envelope under the door. Translation, we were about as discreet as a hungry two-year-old.” With that little tidbit of information, he steps out of the doors and allows them to close.
Luke punches the garage floor button and eyes me but says nothing. At this point, our enemies have proven resourceful. For all we know, we’re being recorded which forces our silence, but my mind is racing.
How did this happen, is my question.
Kurt comes to mind, but he was drugged when we left The Ranch. But the possibility that, as already suggested by one of us—I’m not even sure who at this point—he was there long before our arrival and set-up surveillance seems possible. Of course, so does us being followed in and out of The Ranch. Our vehicles could be tagged. We can’t leave the way we came.
Apparently, I’m not the only one with this mindset.
The elevator doors open and there’s an SUV parked right in front of the car, with a tall, fit man with thick, dark hair, leaning on the door. He pushes off the vehicle and joins us. “I’m Dexter,” he informs me, and then eyes Luke. “I borrowed this big bitch for you. Blake will handle the owners.”
Translation, he stole it, but whatever it takes to get us out of here at this point. Whatever it takes.
Neither me nor Luke argue. Luke gives him a salute and we climb inside the vehicle. The problem now being that we could have eyes on us, and probably do. Luke appears of the same mindset, wasting no time pulling us out of the garage, and quickly doing what he needs to do to get us on a main highway. Of course, I’m looking over our shoulders every second, when Luke gets Blake on the phone and he begins guiding our path via street cameras.
In the meantime, I text Blake a copy of the invitation. “Got it,” Blake confirms. “Keep driving. I’ll text you your landing spot. More on all of this bullshit soon.” He disconnects.
“Okay,” I say. “Keep driving doesn’t seem like much of a plan.”
“Better we keep moving than sit still right now, as far as I’m concerned. Every damn time we plant ourselves, we end up with a surprise.”
“Right,” I say tightly because how can I argue the truth? “What was that back there?” I hold up the invitation. “What is this? And how is Kurt involved?”
“Michael Phillips has money. The kind that pays for the best of the best which I might add, could mean Kurt, but Kurt doesn’t feel right.” His lips press together a moment, before he adds, “This isn’t his work.”
“He’s alive,” I argue. “He’s been alive. He’s had plenty of time to set us up.”
“To what end?” he challenges.
“He wants the package.”
“If he’s been watching us, which we have to assume to be the case, he has to know we don’t have it.”
“They all think we have it, Luke, which is insane considering we don’t even know what it is. This takes me back to my point back in the hotel room. We need to regroup. We need to step back and regroup.”
“We need to end this.”
“How do you propose we do that when everyone else knows more than us? We need to shift the knowledge gap.”
“That’s right,” he agrees. “We do.” He grabs the card from the seat where I’ve set it and lifts it, his attention shifting between me and the road. “Phillips knows what we don’t know. We just got an invitation to the encyclopedia of knowledge.”
“Or a grave we’re likely sharing,” I counter.
His cellphone beeps with a message, he glances at it before he says, “Blake found us a place to stay. A house in Highlands Ranch but he wants us to hang back at least an hour, and when he tells us, to head in that direction.”
It’s too close to The Ranch for comfort in my book, but that has it’s plus side, considering Kurt’s there, and we still need a river of words flowing out of his mouth. “We don’t have an hour to waste right now.”
“We both need to eat. Let’s go to that taco joint we love.”
I give a nod and then glance over at him. He’s staring ahead, seeming focused on the road, but I can almost hear him preparing for battle, and that battle is with me. He thinks I’m going to fight him over how we handle this party. He thinks I’m playing this whole scene scared, and maybe I am. I’m scared of him and how eager he is to rush head-on into this. I lost him once. I’m not losing him again. And once he’s dead, he’s gone forever.