Hm. I’m going to have to work on my conversational skills.
“Lyndsey?”
She didn’t move.
Declan’s gaze shifted to the bathroom.
Maybe a peek.
He tiptoed as best he could across the creaky floor and pulled the knob.
Locked.
Shoot.
Declan pulled out his phone and texted Charlotte.
*She fell asleep.*
She answered immediately. She fell asleep?!
*Can’t get her to talk. She’s too drunk.*
That’s when people are most chatty!
*She went from chatty to comatose.*
Fine. Abort mission. We gave it a shot.
Declan slipped his phone into his pocket and opened the screen door, wincing as it creaked.
“Where’re you going?” mumbled Lyndsey. She didn’t really sound awake.
“I have a car waiting outside.”
Lyndsey reached out, her voice whiny. “No. Stay.”
“I can’t. I should head home. I have work in the morning.”
“No.” She lifted her head and then her wrist to squint at her watch. “Stay until, like, seven.”
“In the morning?” That seemed really specific. “Seven? Why seven?”
She hooked her mouth to the right as her head fell back against the chair. “Nevermind. It’s stupid.”
“What?”
“Nothing. He would have seen you. That would’ve…” She faded into an intelligible mumble.
“What?”
Lyndsey smiled but didn’t open her eyes. “Him and those little bitches.”
“Did you say bitches?” repeated Declan, hoping she’d expound. “Did you say something?”
Lyndsey grunted and began to snore softly.
Declan sighed.
Foiled again. Mission over.
He made his way out and walked up the drive to find Charlotte parked there waiting for him.
“How’d it go?” she asked as he slid into her Volvo.
He huffed. “It was a disaster.”
She pulled away and headed toward home. “She looked a little wobbly.”
“It’s a good thing we did show up. I think she planned to drive home in that toy car of hers.”
“She seemed to be getting friendly in the car,” said Charlotte with a giggle in her tone.
“You could see that?” Declan felt his cheeks grow warm. “She was out of her skull.”
“Did she say anything useful?”
“Not really. For some reason she wanted me to stay until seven, though, which I thought was weird.”
“It was pretty clear she was attracted to you.”
“No, I mean why seven? It was such a specific number to mention.”
“Hm. True.” Charlotte seemed to think on it. “Maybe that’s when Todd, the barn boy, comes in. She might have wanted to make him jealous.”
“The barn boy?”
“He’s like a pool boy only with horses.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Bow chicka bow wow...if you know what I mean.”
“Was that your attempt at porn music?”
“Yes. Why? Do you know it’s off?”
He chuckled. “She mentioned she was rich and admitted her dad died, but she said he fell and hit his head.”
“It’s widely known they think it’s murder now. It was in the papers, so she was probably avoiding talking about it as a murder on purpose.”
“I tried to probe but—”
“That’s what she was hoping.”
Declan squinted at her. “Enough of that. You’re the one that put me in this pickle.”
“That’s what she was hoping,” she repeated.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“But you said pickle. There has to be something there.”
“Are you like five years old now?”
Charlotte giggled and covered her eyes with her hand. “It’s late. I’m regressing. Mina said she likes to drink. Maybe she’s suffering some guilt.”
“She’s suffering something. She was crying when we got out of the car at her house.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She seemed overcome by how nice I was to take her home.”
“It was awfully nice of you. She’s lucky some other jerk didn’t pick her up. Who knows how that could have ended.”
“You have no idea. I don’t think the whole evening was her finest moment.”
“Anything else?”
He unbuttoned his shirt and tried to peel away the recorder. “She came alive like a vampire at the end there and I think she said something about little bitches. You’ll hear it at the end.”
“Bitches, plural?”
He nodded. “Isn’t there something about dogs?”
Charlotte smiled. “Puppies. But I don’t think those are the bitches she means.”
He winced as the tape pulled at his skin. “This is going to hurt.”
“I’ll do it.” Charlotte pulled over. “Turn toward me.” He did and she picked away the edge of the tape until she could get a grip on it.
“I’ll pull it quick. Ready?”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“It’ll be fine. On three. One—”
Her arm jerked.
Declan yelped and collapsed back against the seat, his palm pressed where the recorder had been taped.
“I am never doing this again.”
Charlotte grinned and peeled the tape from the recorder. “Oh come on. You’re a natural.” She looked at the sticky side of the tape. “Do you want this skin back?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lyndsey awoke certain there was a drummer in her head pounding out the Morse code for p-a-i-n. She recalled the handsome stranger who’d given her a ride home and rolled over smiling.
She found nothing but sheets.
He’s gone.
Her expression darkened like a thunderhead.
No one cares about me.
He didn’t even want to stay.
What guy doesn’t want to stay?
She sat up and hung her head in her hands. She’d so wanted to trot that hot hunk downstairs in front of Todd. That boy. Show him how little he means to her. Show him what a real man looks like.
Bastard.
She grabbed the plastic cup on her nightstand and threw it against the wall. The water splattered but it wasn’t as satisfying as throwing glass. The plastic just doinked across the floor.
She knew it served her right for messing with someone five years younger. She’d felt so in charge at first, and then even her relationship with the boy had turned on
