Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Slut: Why did you change our names in my phone again? And surely you’re joking. They wouldn’t be allowing him to be here right now if that had happened. And isn’t he from freakin’ Florida?
I quickly changed our names back in my phone, and then waited for her response, which was slow in coming when her baby woke back up.
“Here, take this.”
I rolled my eyes and took her kid, tucking her into my jacket and zipping it up until just the top of her black hair poked out.
She was still really tiny. Like just a little over ten pounds tiny.
And I loved her.
I never knew that I could love another person’s baby so much, but I really did. I loved her with my whole heart.
“What did you rename me as? I can see you laughing over there,” Janie accused.
At the same time, she started to type on her phone furiously.
Big Tits McGee: It did happen in Florida…I think. Johnny was drunk that night, so I can’t really confirm for real. However, I’m not really sure why they tolerate him being here. I once asked my dad, but he told me not to ask ever again and to forget I knew anything. I did ask Rafe, but Rafe gave me this weird look and told me that it wasn’t any of our business. So I started to do some research on him on my own…and found nothing. It was as if someone is hiding him just as well as Rafe hid himself, too. But I know for sure it wasn’t Rafe who hid him. Because he would’ve at least told me that.
I bit my lip as I read her text, then sighed.
He really couldn’t be all that bad…could he?
“Now, what did you put my name in there under?”
I showed her and got an immediate burst of laughter out of her moments later.
***
Hours later, as we were heading to our car, I passed Parker waiting next to a jacked up black truck. My dream truck.
The dream truck that I couldn’t afford, and probably wouldn’t be able to afford for a long time to come.
Janie and Rafe kept walking after Rafe said his goodbyes, but I didn’t follow.
Parker looked up, and his brows rose in surprise to find me still standing there.
“Hey, PC3O?” I asked hesitantly.
Parker stopped and turned, looking at me curiously.
“Why is it that I know that you’re talking to me?” he asked. “And the Star Wars name is C3PO.”
I shrugged.
“You’re not bad, are you?”
His lips twitched. “Sometimes you should trust your friends, darlin’.”
With that cryptic comment, I walked away and only looked over my shoulder twice.
Both times it was to find his eyes securely locked on me.
Chapter 5
I’m not a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person. I’m more of a ‘where did I put my goddamn glass’ kind of person.
-Kayla’s secret thoughts
Kayla
One month later
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Janie asked. “You don’t look okay.”
I wasn’t okay. After the things I saw while I was in Benton, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be okay again.
I’d had a rough month.
And Janie being so far away hadn’t helped.
I’d been lonely in my apartment, and I was also tired of the prying eyes of the men of Free looking at me like I’d lost my light.
I hadn’t lost my light.
I’d been scared to freakin’ death.
Was still scared to freakin’ death.
But at least I didn’t have the eyes of the men who raised me constantly looking at me like I was about to break staring at me anymore.
My hope by coming home, and then moving to Hostel, Texas where Janie now made her home, was to get over what I experienced. The things I saw that other people had done—it’d been terrible. The worst ever. And I knew without a doubt that I didn’t want to be a detective. I couldn’t handle what I witnessed Loki going through on a daily basis. I couldn’t live with that being my life. No way, no how.
Which led me to now, back to square one. Again.
For now, I was working at Hail Auto Recovery. Rafe had called in a few favors, and now I was the newest office assistant. Only I wasn’t just working at the shop answering calls and going to pick up orders, I was also working at their club, Hail House, doing other odds and ends like stocking and payroll.
It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. The pay wasn’t much more than minimum wage, but it came with insurance.
Everything had been going great.
Until this morning.
Until I’d turned on the news and listened with dawning horror that another murder like the one I’d experienced in Benton, Louisiana had happened here.
In Hostel.
In the tiniest town ever.
Why here?
I just didn’t understand.
“Wow, they think that someone cut him up with a freakin’ saw?”
I nodded. “The big parts, yes,” I confirmed through the gorge rising. “The smaller parts were literally cut up with shears. And then limb cutters like you’d use for trees. They think that the killer is using whatever is handy. This time it happened to be a guy who was a woodworker and had a shop at his house. He had a lot of saws.”