Four
Twiggy
I need a donut, and I need it ten minutes ago.
Technically, I wasn’t supposed to leave my apartment for anything less than an emergency. While Brodie defined ‘emergency’ as blood, fire, or imminent childbirth, a donut craving was one hundred percent an emergency in my book.
I might be addicted. I might not care.
Besides…I’ll be in public the entire time. What’s going to happen?
I glance in my rearview as I make the turn into Karla’s Cuppa, one of Lucy Falls’ revered institutions. As usual, the little diner is packed, and I end up parking close to the back of the gravel lot.
Dusk is setting, the streetlights beginning to turn on with an audible hum. I need to make it back quickly; my bodyguard is supposed to arrive sometime this evening, and he’ll probably be pissed off if I’m not there when he arrives.
I make a face as I climb from my beloved Hellcat and stroll into Karla’s. He can get over it. I didn’t want him here to begin with, and I did leave him a note.
Inside the diner, I cast a glance around and shove my hands into my pockets before heading to the end of the line. Shiloh and Gunner sit in a corner booth, Gunner gazing with his usual gaga eyes at his wife as he holds her hand across the table. As I watch, half-amused, half-grossed out, they begin to play thumb wars.
“Mother Mary, get a room, why don’tcha.”
The line moves, all of us shuffling forward a couple of steps before pausing again. It’s moving super slow tonight for some reason. Figures. I check the time on my phone. I’ve been gone close to half an hour, total.
“Hey, Twig. Donut run?” Gunner’s voice cuts into my thoughts, his hands landing heavy on my shoulders in a teasing squeeze. I groan. That feels too good after sitting hunched over the computer all day. Maybe I need to book a massage.
I turn around with a smile. “You know me.”
Shiloh laughs and gives me a knowing look. “‘Just pay me in donuts.’”
Years ago, when anyone needed anything—computer help, tech assistance, information not readily available to the public—they would call me.
For a long time, I was stymied on what sort of payment to request. I enjoyed helping my friends, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking for money from them. I was the product of wealthy parents who had given me everything I needed and then some. Money wasn’t important to me.
But donuts…I liked donuts. They seemed like a fair trade for a few minutes of work.
I shrug. “I didn’t need the money, but the sugar was another story.”
We chat a few minutes longer, until Gunner looks at Shiloh and waggles his eyebrows. “Remember that…thing, Shy? That thing we need to get to?”
Shiloh’s cheeks flame red, and I roll my eyes. “Oh my God. Please go appease your lust, or whatever you want to call it. Do your thing.”
Laughing, they leave, and I turn to finally give my order.
Five minutes later I’m walking out, a box of a dozen Boston creams under my arm. Maybe I can get back before my bodyguard arrives, after all.
That’s my plan, anyway. Several miles down the road, I feel it…that distinct wobble-thud that tells me I’ve got a flat.
Shit, hell, damnit.
How the hell did I manage to pick up a nail between here and Karla’s? Heaving a sigh, I steer to the side of the road, grab my phone to use as a flashlight, and climb out to inspect the damage.
What I find sends ice through my veins. Instead of a nail embedded in the tread or something similar, I discover a gash in the side of the tire. A neat slice, several inches in length.
Like it was made by, say…a knife.
I straighten slowly, looking around with a new wariness at the dark road and woods around me. In the distance, headlights crest the hill as a vehicle travels toward me. I fumble behind me for the door handle, reminded all at once of how something very similar happened to Shiloh before her abduction, when Doctor Adams disabled her car in order to manipulate an opportunity to either grab her or play the hero…we were never certain because Gunner screwed his plans up.
Maybe the Brothers Thurston like the same bag of tricks.
As if in sync with my musings, the vehicle slows and begins to pull over on the opposite side of the road, in the same direction it had been traveling. Quickly, I open my door and slide behind the wheel, closing and locking the door afterward. I unlock my phone, preparing to call 9-1-1, and slant a look out the window.
The dark form making his way toward me is huge. If he wants to break a window to get to me, I don’t stand a chance. The police will never get here in time. Dropping the phone, I dig for the pepper spray in my purse on the seat beside me.
The hulking beast of a man knocks a fist against the window. Is it him? I truly don’t remember Henry Thurston being so big. “Go away!”
“Can’t do that. Open up, Tallulah.”
Tallulah. He called me that the other night, too. Nobody calls me Tallulah, not since my mother died.
“I’ve called the police,” I lie. “They’re on their way right now.”
Something that sounds suspiciously like a grunted curse sounds, and then the man bends until his face is framed by the tinted window. The air rushes out of me in a hiss.
“If you don’t open this fecking door straight away, I’m calling your cousin. After I tan your skinny ass.”
What the fuck, fuck a duck, motherfuck …I’m going to kill him. My cousin sent the worst possible person. The bane of my childhood existence. The biggest jerkface on the east coast.
“Bran-fucking-Kelly.”
His annoying face splits into a wide grin. “In the flesh.”