Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
There were quite a few alleyways between here and there. Not to mention, I had to take one to get to the boardwalk entrance…
“Nice parking job,” a man muttered darkly.
I looked up to find an older man watching me.
I frowned. “Sorry, it’s new.”
“It’s obvious,” he countered. “Maybe if you don’t know how to drive it, you shouldn’t buy it.”
I tilted my head and eyed him curiously. “I didn’t buy it.”
His brows shot up. “Sugar daddy buy it for you?”
Instead of crossing my arms over my chest and giving him the side-eye that I wanted to, I went about starting the generator up and walking into the trailer to push the pop-ups out.
Once that was accomplished, I fixed everything that knocked over during the trip—and my inability to miss a curb if my life depended on it—and walked back outside.
Since I didn’t have anything until two, and that was a few hours from now, I decided to go for a walk on the beach.
I was doing just that when I got a phone call from Lolo.
“Hello?” I answered, surprised that she was calling me.
Not that I minded. I liked that she was calling me. She’d just never done it before.
“Oh my god! You have to get here fast!”
I blinked at the whispered tones that’d just come through my phone.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where are you?”
My phone dinged, and I pulled it away from my ear to look at it.
It was Lolo’s location.
I clicked on the map and blinked. “You’re at the beach?”
“Literally right down the road from where you said you were parking. At the other public entrance.” She paused. “We watched you park your truck. It was hilarious. But… just get down here.”
That ‘get down here’ would mean that I would have to pass a few alleys on the way.
Shit.
Surely Wake would forgive me that I had to go find out what was wrong with his daughter…
Hustling back up the beach toward the beach entrance—there was a large jetty in between the two entrances that would take me much longer to navigate than just going back—I made it to where her location said she was within ten minutes.
I’d just stepped past an alley when a large hand grabbed my wrist.
I whipped around, ready to defend myself, and came face to face with Dayden.
“Dayd,” I whispered. “What the hell?”
He grimaced, realizing too late that he’d scared the shit out of me.
“Sorry,” he mouthed.
I waved my hand in the air. Then looked around for Lolo, who was nowhere in sight.
“She’s behind the dumpster.” He pointed, saying it so quietly that I almost didn’t catch the words.
I looked in that direction, then tilted my head.
“What is it?” I asked.
He held his finger up to my lips, then gestured for me to follow him.
I did, coming to a stop on the other side when I realized that there was another alleyway that jutted off the back of the one I’d been in.
I crouched down behind the dumpster when I saw the opening, then touched Lolo’s shoulder.
She looked at me with wide eyes, pointed, then mouthed, “Listen.”
Since I wasn’t at her vantage point, I was getting really muffled sounds at first due to the wall.
But she was recording, which I just then realized, so I didn’t ask her to move.
Instead, I wiggled my way between her and the dumpster and then peeked my head around the corner.
What I saw shocked me.
It was Sheriff Graydon.
But it was also his sister.
I hadn’t seen her in real life. Only in photos that Wake had produced to make sure that I didn’t run into her and not know who she was.
But there she was, in the flesh, poking her brother in the chest with one extended finger, practically spitting in his face.
“…already found you someone. I just need more time,” she hissed. “Give me more time!”
Sheriff Graydon leaned forward, shook his head in her face, then pushed her away viciously. So hard that she almost hit the ground of the alley. She caught herself just in time for him to say, “Don’t you think that I’ve tried? I can’t give you any more time. I just straight up can’t. They won’t allow me to.”
“Hey, what are you doing?” a loud voice yelled. “Y’all better not be goin’ through my trash! That’s an invasion of privacy!”
I cursed, realizing that the newcomer was talking about us.
I pulled back, looked Lolo straight in the eye, and said, “Go. Now. I’ll take care of this.”
As in, they better not be anywhere near me, just in case shit hit the fan like I now fully expected it to.
I heard a curse from behind me as Sheriff Graydon realized he wasn’t alone when he thought he was.
Lolo looked at me, but before she could say a word, Dayden was pulling her away and out of the alleyway.