Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
While wiping my cheeks like they’re strained with salty blobs, I check the connection to make sure it’s still running. Grayson and Cameron are so frozen that it is as if someone hit pause on a running tape. I want to rewind it, but all agents know they shouldn’t interrupt a live feed while it’s being recorded.
I stop searching for a better connection when Cameron sends a quick text, then dumps her phone on a stack of magazines she suddenly straightens. Once they’re stacked as tall as a tower, she rights the wonky cushions on her couch.
As she reconfigures her living room with mechanical precision, the anger on her face drains away before being replaced with something cold and distant.
I take a mental note to book her in for a psych workup. The shift is too sudden, too unhinged. This isn’t how someone with sound mental health operates.
When Cameron shifts her focus to the kitchen, Grayson stops profiling her and instead becomes a caring partner and friend. He fills the dishwasher before washing the handful of pots that won’t fit in it. They don’t talk. They don’t even look at each other. They just roll through the motions like this is the credits of their brief feature film.
Once the drying rack is empty, Grayson shifts on his feet to face Cameron. She’s quiet, too quiet, though I predict her simmering anger shifting to a boil when Grayson announces that he’s heading out.
She dips her chin, acknowledging that she heard him, but she doesn’t comfort him with her eyes or her words. She wants to break his heart with silence, as if it isn’t already in tatters.
Relief washes over me when Grayson doesn’t fall for her mind games. After a brief “Night,” he heads for the front door.
He’s out, and he’s safe.
At last, I can breathe freely.
I close my laptop before tucking the evidence I used to snoop under my seat. I’ll tell Grayson about how I witnessed the fight when the moment is right. I don’t want to force him to admit anything he said during their fight, any more than I want the fantasy stripped from me. He most likely said he loved me to end their fight. He didn’t mean it. Right?
I’m about to sling open my door and hobble to the driver’s seat, needing something to keep my hands occupied when Grayson returns to my side, when a knock taps at my window.
I jump, startled someone snuck up on me unawares. An elderly lady stands outside my car, bundled in a thick cardigan. Her white hair is pulled back in a neat bun, and she is sheepishly smiling.
“Sorry to bother you, dear. My battery is dead. Would you mind giving me a jump?”
Really, karma? Now?
I slant my head to hide my grimace. This is karma biting back for the stunt I pulled on Cameron yesterday.
A brisk wind whips out the lady’s cardigan, and when she shivers, I remember how badly I want to stay on karma’s good side. “Of course. Let me grab the cables.”
Careful not to place excess weight on my foot that had a shard wedged in it, I climb out of my car. The cuts sting, but I clench my teeth and limp to the trunk.
After pulling out the jumper cables, I follow the woman to her car parked five rows back. She pops up the hood while I untangle the leads that are as messy as my head. I can’t stop replaying Grayson’s words, and they have me the most distracted I’ve ever been.
This is evident when I attempt to connect the cables to the battery’s terminals. The terminal clamps aren’t connected to the battery. They’re flapping in the salty breeze whipping off the coast.
While frowning so hard I’ll worry about a new wrinkle, I lock eyes with the lady no longer seated behind the wheel. She balances her chunky hip on the wheel arch of a dark SUV parked next to her sedan. “Ma’am, your battery isn’t dead. It’s—”
Before I can finish my sentence, pain explodes behind my eyes, and the world tilts sideways. I crank my neck to see what slammed into me so fiercely that I’m instantly dizzy, but my legs buckle out from beneath me, and I collapse to the ground in a heap before I can see anything.
The last thing I see before I’m struck again is the evil grin of the elderly woman when she leans over me and whispers, “Go to sleep, dear. It will be less painful this way,” while jabbing a syringe into my neck.
36
GRAYSON
As I leave Cameron’s apartment, my breaths rattle in my hollow chest. Our fight was ugly. Words flew like knives, and accusations and truths tangled together so ruefully that it was hard to tell them apart. But as I step out of the elevator and into the lobby, I feel lighter on my feet. Freer. Even with Cameron’s mental stability weighing heavily on my shoulders, I know the direction I need to take to right my wrongs and still have a chance at happiness.