Page 2 of Our Little Secret
Especially now.
Great.
“Damn.”
She picked up her cell phone and texted her daughter:Running late. On my way.
How many times had she typed in those exact words and sent them to Marilee? At least once a week, often times more. Especially recently.
Marilee, all of fourteen, no, wait, “almost fifteen,” would be pissed.
So what else was new?
Spewing exhaust, the backhoe inched forward, a hefty driver working levers to scrape up huge chunks of concrete and asphalt. In what seemed like slow motion, he swung his bucket high into the air, then tilted it to pour his load into the box of a massive, idling dump truck.
The minutes ticked by before the backhoe started moving out of the street and into an alley.
“Finally.”
Her cell phone rang. Startling her.
Then she realized it wasn’t her cell, not the one registered on her family plan with Neal and Marilee but her other phone. The burner. Not connected to her Bluetooth. The secret phone no one knew about. No one but Gideon. She flipped open the console, scraped out the bottom of the small space, and found the burner. Yanking it from its hiding space, she glanced at the screen.
She didn’t recognize the number.
“What the hell?”
She answered abruptly, her foot easing up on the brake. “Hello.”
A pause.
Her SUV started rolling forward.
“Hello?” she said sharply again.
The street cleared and the flagger turned his sign from Stop to Slow.
A rough, whispered voice was barely audible over the rumble of engines and shouts of men on the work crew. “He’s not who you think he is.”
“What?” she said, straining to hear. “Who’s not—who is this?”
The call disconnected.
Her heart sank. Someone knew! Oh God, she’d been found out.
She blinked, staving off a panic attack. No one was supposed to know. No one did. Of course no one did. The call had to be a mistake. Someone who had punched in the wrong numbers. That was it. Sweat began to moisten her fingers and she mentally kicked herself for not having the guts to break it off earlier. She hadn’t even found the courage to tell him today.
“Chickenshit,” she grumbled. “Coward.”
The flagger was motioning her through, frantically waving his arm, but her mind was on the message. What if it wasn’t a wrong number? What if someone knew? Oh God.
She stepped on the gas, her heart pounding, her pulse pounding in her ears.
This couldn’t be happening—From the corner of her eye, she saw a blur of yellow, a sports car speeding around her, cutting her off.
“Jesus!” she cried, nearly standing on the brakes as the disgusted workman kept waving her through, though he gave the yellow car a shake of his head.
But the Porsche was already through the construction zone and caught at the next light. “Idiot!” she muttered under her breath, driving forward, hoping to make the light as it started to turn green.