Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“Yep,” Coffey, Simi’s husband, said. “I also think that y’all should tell her that your sister isn’t crazy.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re not hiding it. We’re helping the lie along so she’ll live.”
Coffey’s eyes turned to me. “Don’t you think that, just maybe, it’s her decision?”
I thought about his question for a long moment before saying, “If I left it up to her, she’d stay holed up in her bunk in the tour bus and never leave it. If I left it up to her, she’d hide behind her condition, and never find the love she always reads about in her dirty books. If I left it up to her, she’d waste her life and never have those kids she desperately wants, but is too afraid to hope for.”
Coffey didn’t have anything to say to that. Whether it was because he thought I was right, or he was agreeing to disagree, I didn’t know.
But I’d go with whatever I needed to do to make my head feel better.
“We need to talk about those packages again,” I said. “She got another one.”
My twin had a stalker.
My twin had a stalker that liked to send all kinds of fucked up things.
The most recent package was an AI generated porn movie that starred a man and a woman—the woman looking almost identical to Tony in a sickeningly horrible way.
“I already called Folsom,” Keene murmured. “She has the tape and is trying to get what she can off of it as we speak.”
Folsom was a woman that had lived and worked with us for a while. She was crazy good at computer stuff—as in, break into the most secure government databases and never get caught kind of good.
Though she didn’t work for us anymore, we’d all made great friends with her and she helped us get stuff figured out if we needed it.
Though, this was one case she wasn’t able to crack.
It was driving her crazy that she couldn’t help.
But usually, the person that was stalking and leaving packages for Tony stayed away from the internet.
He was also crazy good at slipping through the security measures we’d put in place.
And they were no slouch security measures, either.
Keene had a friend help with the design of them, so they’d work absolutely anywhere.
Keene was ex-military.
His friend was ex-military and owned a business that specialized in security.
The friend was a man named Hannibal that I was fairly sure was God’s gift to the universe.
Hannibal was…wow.
Really, when I thought of him in my head, I couldn’t quite focus on a single thing that I loved more about him.
He was tall, graying, and handsome.
He had black hair that, every time I saw him, or saw a picture of him, seemed to get grayer and grayer.
He was tall, probably around six foot three or four, and had the biggest hands I’d ever seen.
Nine times out of ten he had a beard, too. One that varied in length from five o’clock shadow, to ‘you should’ve shaved six weeks ago.’
“Have you thought about asking Hannibal?” I wondered.
Keene’s eyes narrowed.
He didn’t like Hannibal.
Something had happened and the two of them had a falling out.
A falling out that Keene didn’t want to talk about, no matter how hard I tried to get him to open up.
Which was a bummer, because I loved hearing about Hannibal.
Though, just sayin’, but sometimes when we ran into Hannibal, it seemed very possible that Hannibal couldn’t stand the sight of me.
Not that I’d asked him or anything.
I mean, I barely saw the guy.
I did go out of my way to check up on him through his brother’s social media, though.
His brother was none other than Hancock “Parts” Peters, the retired catcher for Longview Texas’s baseball team. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what that particular team’s name was.
But I did know he was kind of a big deal.
And every once in a while, he shared about his brother. Or his wife, Sway, did.
Hannibal was America’s hero.
Everyone loved hearing about him. Especially me.
“I suppose I could,” he grumbled. “I guess, maybe, I just thought this might one day fix itself.”
I scoffed. “It’s been going on for over a year, Keenie Weenie,” I told him. “It’s time to face the facts. It’s not going to fix itself, and we’re in over our heads. Even Folsom can’t find hide nor hair of him.”
Keene whispered something under his breath.
“I could ask some of my friends,” Coffey muttered. “They’re not cops or anything, but they could ask around.”
“I’ll ask Hannibal,” Keene grumbled.
CHAPTER 2
Call me super glue, because my ass gets attached.
-Hades’ secret thoughts
HADES
Filling in for not one, but two people, was downright exhausting.
Since Simi got pregnant, I’d taken over her act.
I couldn’t say it was my favorite thing in the world, and I couldn’t say I was especially good at it, but I got the job done.