Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
And since my plan was to bring Ellodie over there with me, I could grab them then.
Mamasauce:
Yes. What kind?
Me:
Whatever. I think the girl will eat anything.
She really would, too. I’d yet to see her not willing to try anything. And every time I’d witnessed her eat, she’d been more than eclectic with her food choices. Veggies. Meat. Starches.
She would eat it all.
Ellodie’s phone beeped, causing her to pull it out of her pocket.
Mine vibrated, but I was in the middle of a bite of hamburger and didn’t reach for it.
“So what was happening downstairs when you came up here?” Hollis asked.
“I…” Quincy started, but Ellodie interrupted.
“That’s the least of our worries right now,” she said, eyes haunted, as she held out her phone for all of us to see. “Look.”
She twisted and placed the phone on the table, and I saw the message on the screen from the app she’d been using to date before we’d started what we had going.
That’s when I saw the username. FarmerJoe122
FarmerJoe122:
How do you feel about coffee?
My stomach squeezed, and I was already reaching for my phone before I’d consciously told myself to.
I had the phone in my hand, and Tobin’s name pulled up in seconds.
He answered in two rings.
“Yeah?” he grumbled.
“Ellodie got contacted by the Farmer Joe guy again.” I murmured quietly.
There was a moment of silence and then he said, “I’m not at my work computer. Can you tell me her login information and her password?”
I heard a woman grumbling in the background, and knew he had to be with his wife.
Jesus, the man was investigating a serial killer, and she had a problem with someone interrupting their time?
God, I hated her.
I wish Tobin had never agreed to marry her. Or hell, never agreed to have a date with her.
I gave him the information as Ellodie relayed it to me, and then he was humming softly for a few seconds before saying, “Okay, I’m hooked up. Go ahead and tell her to engage. Don’t make any plans. Just tell her to get to know him.”
I wanted her to do nothing of the sort.
But, upon hearing Tobin’s words through the speaker, Ellodie reached for the phone.
Hollis beat her to it, though.
She started typing furiously, her face a mask of concentration. She typed for what felt like forever before nodding, then hitting send.
Then she placed the phone back onto the table.
Ellodiecandriveatractor:
Hi, I love coffee. But it has to have lots of cream and sugar. But I don’t do coffee with strangers, I’m sorry. What do you do for a living? Where are you from? What’s your favorite color? Do you wear jeans a lot? What’s your favorite number? What time do you go to bed?
“That’s a good start,” I admitted. “If he answers any of that truthfully, it could help locate him.”
“All right,” Tobin said. “Yeah, good start. And I agree with Quaid, if he answers any of it truthfully, it could definitely help locate him. Or pinpoint a few things about him.”
Farmer Joe didn’t answer, though.
He stayed silent.
“Wonder if he knows it’s not me?” Ellodie asked, but then sighed. “I have to get back to work.”
She stood up and bent down, pressing her lips to my own.
“Do you want to keep my phone?” she asked.
I was already shaking my head, stopping her with a hand on her thigh when she went to take her trash.
She looked down at me, both of us completely ignoring the two across the table from us, and said, “Yeah?”
“Be careful, okay?” I pleaded.
She nodded her head, her shoulders loosening as she said, “I’ll do my best.”
That was what I was afraid of.
Her best wasn’t good enough, and we both knew it.
I watch Quaid fold sheets the same way he watches me eat a banana.
—Ellodie’s secret thoughts
ELLODIE
I didn’t know what I expected when I went to the family home of Germaine and Garnett Carter.
I mean, logically, I knew there would be a lot of people there.
What I hadn’t planned on was that all of the people would be there.
We were among the first to show.
The only person besides Germaine and Garnett themselves that was there was Auden.
Auden was halfway through a beer, and it looked like he’d been there a while based on the snack wrappers surrounding him.
“You got any more of those?” I asked curiously as I looked at the decimated snack cakes, and possibly empty box of Zebra Cakes.
He leaned forward and dumped out a single Zebra Cake, making me smile.
I caught it up and pulled it open just as Garnett walked into the room with a box of Cosmic Brownies.
“Ohh,” I murmured as I bit into the snack cake but kept my eyes on the real prize.
Those brownies.
“Thanks, Mom,” Quaid grinned as she handed him the box.
I held out my hand for a brownie, which he readily gave me.