"Why not? What are you waiting for? What are you planning to do? Kill me for whatever you think I've done?" I glared at him. "Which, by the way, I haven't."
"No," he said. "Believe what you want, but I'm not gonna hurt you."
"Except you already have."
"Sorry."
"You don't sound sorry."
He shrugged.
"Then what exactly are you waiting for?" I said.
"Well, here's the thing," he said. "Yeah, I was in that house of yours, or whoever's, and I saw all that shit you had laid out, but I got to wondering 'what else was there."
"What do you mean, what else?"
"I mean," he said, "videos, pictures, you know, the kind of crap that's gonna turn some waitress into a fuckin' star."
I lifted my chin. "There's nothing wrong with being a waitress."
"Except you obviously don't think that way. Otherwise, you wouldn't need this, would you?"
He reached into his other pocket and pulled out a different cell phone. Except this particular phone, I recognized. I closed my eyes. I knew exactly what he was going to show me, and I didn't want to see it.
"Open your eyes," he said.
Slowly, I did. And there it was, the naked picture of Lawton asleep. Taking it had been an accident, but if I were being honest, the fact I hadn't yet deleted it wasn't exactly accidental. I should've deleted it. I certainly meant to delete it. Just somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.
Still, I hadn't showed it to anyone, and never would. Okay, I'd showed it to Erika, but not the X-rated parts. Still, the realization made me feel more than a little ashamed.
My voice was quiet. "I took it by accident," I said. "It's a new phone. Did you even see all the other pictures on there?"
If he'd bothered to check at all, I knew what he'd find. Pictures of my dashboard, my shoes, the ceiling, just about anything but what I wanted to capture for posterity. It was official. I hated that phone. If I ever got any money, I'd throw the damn thing out the window.
He held out the picture. "So this was an accident, huh? Pretty good composition for something you didn't mean to take."
"Yeah? Well, scroll through them," I said. "Show me one other picture that looks like I took it on purpose. Just one."
"I already did," he said.
"Do it again."
With his gaze still half on me, he scrolled through the images. His eyebrows furrowed. "This doesn't prove anything."
"Well, I guess that's where we're different," I said. "because I didn't think I'd have to prove anything to you."
"Yeah?" he said. "And what about that movie poster? You got big plans for it? Nice of you to think of a name before you got a product. Or, have you got one of those too? If you do, and if it's in the house, Bishop'll find it. I guarantee you that."
So that explained the delay? Suddenly, it all made sense, including why it was taking so long. There wasn't anything to find, but if I knew his brother, he'd keep on looking.
"There's nothing to find," I said.
"Didn't seem that way to me," Lawton said.
"That poster?" I said. "It was my birthday present. My best friend, Erika, she's a graphic design major. It was a joke." My voice rose. "Just a stupid joke! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Yeah," a voice said from the doorway. "What the fuckiswrong with you?"
