“That’s not the actions of a guy who’s looking to get on your nerves, dolcezza. That’s a guy who’s saying, ‘fuck with my woman, and I’llunaliveyou.’ And he didn’t do it to just anyone. He did it to a member of Ravenswood’s dynasty. Either he has a death wish, or he isn’t fucking around.”
My eyes further narrow on Reed until I can barely see through them. Iknowthat look on his face. There’s something else he isn’t saying. “What did you hear?” I demand, pointing back to my screen.
Despite the food still being so hot that it probably scolds the entire inside of his mouth, Reed devours as much of a frittata as possible to muffle his words. And he keeps doing it every time I ask.
“I don’t like you very much right now,” I say, though he knows I don’t mean it.
That much is clear when he swallows the last of his frittatas, grinning as he slides out of the booth to get his next serving. “You love me.” He taps my phone again, the screen now black. “Download the footage and send it my way. If my suspicions are confirmed, I’ll fill you in.”
I glare at the back of Reed’s bleached head. “Why can’t you just tell me what your ‘suspicions’ are?”
Though he’s still walking towards the kitchen, he turns back to face me. “You know what they say about assumptions, and you’ve been operating entirely on them since this guy came to town. You need facts, dolcezza.”
As much as I want to keep glaring at Reed…he has a point. Everything I know about Jase is at least a few years old. Plenty can change in that time, and given what happened with his dad, I suspect a lot did. He moved to the other side of the country to get away from it all.
Picking up my phone, I unlock the screen to download the video as Reed said, only to be given an“Unable to process request”error.
Weird. I refresh the page and—
It’s gone.
What the actual fuck?
The footage logs show me dazedly walking down the driveway, and then nothing. The only other videos from this morning were triggered by Jase initially leaving, my family coming and going, and a delivery driver approaching the front door. I refresh the page again just to make sure I’m not hallucinating, but nope. Any evidence of Patrick’s little drop-in, as well as Jase’s return, has been deleted.
May I repeat: what the actual fuck?
CHAPTER 26
ON THE WAY DOWN
PRESENT
My nerves don’t settlefor the next three hours, especially after I confirm that, yes, only the security system administrator can remove video logs. I’m only a “Shared User,” which isn’t surprising, but I discovered that my dad is one, too. If he, of all people, doesn’t have full access to the account, there’s no way Blythe or Vanessa allowed anyone else. Knowing that there’s proof of him illegally entering my house, Patrick definitely has a motive to delete the footage, and he’s the kind of guy with the resources to make things disappear…
But why would he also bother deleting the proof of Jase returning to the house?
The answer: he wouldn’t.
There also isn’t any proof of Jase leaving the house again after I did, and I saw what he was capable of hacking into when we were younger. I doubt he hasn’t honed his skills since then, enough so that he could get into Blythe’s computer, which is conveniently at the house, where I left him alone.
I’m apparently too distracted trying to figure out what Jase could be up to that I don’t realize what’s wrong until a loud whine plays over the music I’m blasting. I cut off the song just in time to hear the engine sputter.
What the hell?
My foot pumps on the accelerator, but the car only continues to slow down. I steal a glance at the fuel gauge to see that the needle has dropped below E.
No, that can’t be right. I haven’t driven the car these last two days, and I still had a quarter of a tank—
Tell that to the engine, Ali,because the car inevitably coasts to a stop despite the low-fuel light and audible alert never going off.
I pound my palms on the steering wheel, already knowing the culprit.
It’s official.
I am going to murder my sister.
Thank God I decided to cut through the neighborhood to avoid the traffic on the main drag, so at least the car hasn’t died out in the middle of a busy intersection, but I also don’t see anybody around to help me. It’s hot as hell outside, so anyone in their right mind is taking refuge somewhere with air conditioning. Dad’s at some convention, Blythe’s busy with her country club friends, Maggie is still on shift, and Hell would freeze over before Vanessa would come to help me.
