Chapter 4 #3
“Wow. Rude,” Tris said immediately. “Did you hear that, Cade? He said we’re not friends.”
“You cried at our wedding,” Cade called.
Walker breathed out a heavy noise through his nose. “I wasn’t even at your wedding.”
“He wasn’t?” Cade asked, sounding baffled by this information.
“I don’t remember,” Tris admitted. “We were tanked.”
Walker briefly considered slamming his head into the wall. Or throwing his phone into oncoming traffic.
“Focus,” Walker begged. “You have the attention span of a goldfish.”
“That’s hurtful,” Tris said with a sniff.
“Tris,” Walker growled.
There was a beat of silence.
“Goldfish can actually recognize human faces,” Tris informed him.
Walker closed his eyes. Of course, he would know that.
“Fine,” Tris said, exasperated, like Walker was the problem. “There’s been a glitch on the app. We’re trying to fix it, but it currently looks like there are no openings in the safe houses. I’m having to manually monitor the sites.”
“Ah,” Walker said. “Makes sense.”
It didn’t. At all. Walker didn’t know shit about computers.
Rain spattered on his arm, and he squinted into the hazy sky, then reached for the door handle. He climbed into the cab just as rain began to drum steadily against the roof. Cake lifted her head from her perch above the sleeper, blinked at him, then immediately went back to sleep.
Smart animal.
“You’re still meeting us at The Morgue tomorrow night, right?” Tris said excitedly.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Shut up,” Tris said. “You know you love us. We’re your only friends.”
“We’re not friends,” Walker reminded him again. “I don’t have friends. What’s this meeting all about, anyway?”
“You’ll see,” Tris said cryptically.
Walker opened one of the storage compartments and dug through a stack of neatly folded clothes.
“We won’t make it to the site until tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll have to make a few stops along the way for…obvious reasons.”
They needed to dispose of the body in the woods along the way, similar to the way Early got rid of his victims.
There was a long pause.
“We?”
Walker frowned. “What?”
“You said ‘we,’” Tris said excitedly.
There was another gasp, followed by a muffled thump and what sounded suspiciously like Cade swearing under his breath.
“Oh, my God. Are you keeping him?”
“Keeping who?” Walker said, digging his palm deeper into his eye socket.
“Him. The kid, the one who almost…you know,” Tris said.
“Why are we censoring ourselves when we’re on a secure line?” Walker asked.
“It never hurts to be overly cautious. And don’t change the subject. Did you find your swan?”
“My what?”
“The poor little creature that imprints on you like a swan does its mother?” Tris explained.
Walker sighed. He found a shirt Kota wouldn’t be swimming in, then stood there staring at it for several seconds as he processed the fact that this conversation was actually happening. The kid had been in his life less than twelve hours, and somehow, Tris had already decided he’d adopted him.
“Hah, I knew it. I totally knew it. Told you,” he shouted to someone. Probably Cade.
“I didn’t say any of that,” Walker muttered. Which was technically true.
Unfortunately, he’d also never corrected him.
“You didn’t have to. I’m very intuitive. Right, honey?”
“Yes, mouse, you’re practically psychic,” Cade said, sounding much closer than a moment ago.
Close enough that Walker was forced to assume whatever “exercise” they’d been doing had resumed.
“Can we finish what we started before this completely unnecessary phone call?”
There were very obvious kissing noises coming through the speaker now. Walker grimaced. Tris laughed. Then laughed again for no apparent reason. At this point, Walker wasn’t entirely convinced Tris needed a reason to laugh.
“I’m gonna go.”
“See you tomorrow night,” Cade muttered. “Say goodbye, mouse.”
“Bye, mouse,” Tris gasped. “I’ll pin the location.”
Walker closed his eyes. There was a brief rustle, a startled yelp from Tris, and Cade saying something too muffled to make out. Walker decided he did not want clarification. Then the line went dead.
How had this become his life? Five years ago, he’d been a solitary trucker with a murder contract and a cat. Now, he was apparently being psychoanalyzed by a hyperactive gamemaster while standing ten feet away from a corpse hidden in his truck.
And, if Tris was to be believed, adopting a baby swan. A swan who stared up at him with big blue eyes that made Walker want to slay dragons for him.
What?
No.
Absolutely not.
This was all Tris’s fault. The fact that Walker had just spent five minutes digging through his clothes to find Kota something comfortable to wear was completely unrelated.
He finished grabbing the items, slipped his phone into his back pocket, then patted Cake on the head as he passed.
Cake opened one eye, judged him silently, then went back to sleep.
Traitor.
He headed back to Kota at a jog. The rain chose that moment to intensify, drumming harder against the roof of the truck. Walker pulled his cap lower and picked up his pace, anyway.