“How long will it take?” I asked.
“Depends,” he said, slipping it in his pocket. “I’ll be in touch.” The bells jangled as the door closed behind him.
Vero shook her head. “I don’t trust that little shit.”
The worst part was, neither did I.
CHAPTER 13
Later that night, Vero and I sat on the carpet in the living room, a bowl of popcorn between us and a mountain of Christmas lights piled around us on the floor. The house was blissfully quiet, and I hated to admit it, but the tree Steven had brought was rather lovely, filling the room with fresh pine smells. Vero had brought up the dusty Christmas boxes from the basement and was working through the tangles in the glittering green ropes. Earlier, she’d propped the tree in a stand, perching on a chair to trim the tall tips. She had a way of getting things to fit—of quietly smoothing down edges to make our prickly, disorganized life work.
I frowned at the three stockings she’d hung on the mantel. I didn’t care what Steven said. Vero and I might not have known each other for long, or even very well, when she’d stumbled into the garage and helped me bury a body, but she was family now. I made a mental note to stop at the mall this week to purchase an extra stocking.
“Has she posted yet?” Vero asked as she bent over her work, lights strewn over her arms.
I checked my phone again. “Not yet.”
We’d spent the last few hours Googling the dark web browsers Cam had recommended, figuring out how to download them to each of our laptops and phones. After that, we’d logged in to the women’s forum to see if FedUp had responded, but there had been no activity on the thread since I’d posted my offer at the food court. A single direct message had been waiting in my inbox—two words from EasyClean: Back off.
“You seem tense,” Vero said as I snapped the cap off one of Delia’s magic markers.
“Of course I’m tense. What if FedUp hasn’t written back to me because she’s already hired EasyClean?”
“Doubt it. EasyClean wouldn’t waste time messaging you if she knew she had the job. She’s just trying to scare you off. You sure that’s all that’s bugging you?”
“What else would be bugging me?” I tested a marker against the long sheet of art paper I’d unspooled across the carpet. It was dried out.
“Heard from Julian yet?”
“No.” I ground my teeth as the nub of the marker tore through the paper. Five days had passed since he’d left for Florida, and still not a peep. “He said he’d text when he gets home.”
“When’s that?”
“I didn’t ask.” Vero raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m not his mother. I’m his…” Hell, I didn’t know what I was to Julian. “And don’t you dare make any more wisecracks about my age.”
She shoved a handful of popcorn in her smug, grinning mouth. “So are you going to go out with Nick?” she asked, wagging her eyebrows.
I’d made the mistake of telling Vero about Nick’s casual invitation to catch up sometime. Ever since, she’d been hovering over my cell phone, waiting for him to call. Although, if I was being honest with myself, I might have been hovering a little more than usual, too. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was checking for texts from Julian or from Nick. Or which of those two possibilities I was more anxious about.
“I’m pretty sure catching up with Nick would be a mistake.”
“I disagree. I think your editor’s onto something. Who’s going to keep your heroine company while her attorney is missing? A second love interest would definitely spice things up.”
My phone pinged. Vero dove for it, her hand closing around it before mine could, her body twisting away from me as she punched in my passcode. Her eyes bugged wide.
“Daaaaaaamn!” she breathed, holding my phone out of reach as I lunged for it. “Who do I have to kill to get forty percent of that?” My stomach did a strange little flip when I saw Julian on the screen. I grabbed the phone from her and fell back against the side of the couch, my mouth going dry as I stared at Julian’s selfie. Sand peppered his shoulders. His rose-gold chest was slick with seawater and sweat, and the low waistband of his board shorts revealed a tantalizing sliver of the taut pale skin underneath, probably just to torture me.
Wish you were here. Home in a few days. Will text when I’m back. His sun-bleached curls were wild, his smile roguish.
I glanced down at my sweats and smoothed down my mom-bun. At least I was wearing pants. Still, I was pretty sure any selfie I took right now would pale in comparison. For a second, I considered the possibility that a selfie without pants might be a more equitable response. But then I remembered what Cam had said in the garage about not doing anything stupid online, and I was pretty sure texting nudes to Julian would fall squarely in that category.