Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Are you taking me with you? Protective custody?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
How the hell had this guy pulled off a diamond heist? He seemed so anxious and insecure.
Miko looked at me, then exhaled hard. “Guess so,” he agreed. “Pack a bag. And your gaming console.”
“Why?”
“Chuck, it’s been a fucking endless night. Just do it. Please,” he added to soften the demand.
“Where are we going?” Chuck asked, hopping up to rush to his closet, grabbing a duffle bag and stuffing random shit into it.
“The city.”
“Yeah? Road trip!” Chuck said, sounding excited, seemingly forgetting about the danger.
Miko nodded toward the hall. I followed him out, handing him his gun back. “You alright?” I asked.
“Worried about me, sugar?”
“I dunno. Might build character to get your face fucked up a little.”
“Like the way I look too much, huh?” he teased, then sighed. “Sorry about the tagalong, but we couldn’t just leave him here to die. He’s helpless.”
“Yeah, about that. How the hell did he pull off a heist?”
“Honestly, because it was so simple. He stole one of the empty bags from the warehouse. I filled it with the fake shit. He brought the fake shit in and put it in place of one of the real diamond bags. Though, according to Henry, he’d been antsy as fuck the whole time.”
“Why is he not at work? Didn’t you tell him to act normally?”
“Okay, all set,” Chuck said, moving out into the hall with his bag slung over his back, his console in one arm, and a fucking stuffed pig under the other. “It’s a pillow,” he insisted when both of our gazes moved in that direction.
“Alright. Need anything else?”
“Think I’m set.”
“Okay, we’re gonna do this fast, in case that fuck is still lingering,” Miko said as we moved as a group toward the front door.
Morning was dawning, casting reds and oranges across the sky, brightening the shadows that could have easily hidden someone just half an hour before.
“We don’t run,” Miko instructed. “You got neighbors that are probably waking up about now. We do a brisk walk. Me and Max in the front, you in the back. Got it?” he asked, looking back at Chuck as he reached for the door handle.
“Got it,” Chuck agreed, still looking entirely too excited about the prospect of a ‘road trip,’ and forgetting all about the guy wanting to kill him.
With that, we moved outside.
Miko’s and my head were on a swivel, looking for anyone lingering around while Chuck lumbered on, clueless of any threats.
But we all made it into the car, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally moved away from the curb.
“This isn’t the way to the city,” Chuck said, leaning between the two front seats.
“We have to get our shit,” Miko explained, glancing over at me. “Why the fuck weren’t you at work today?”
“Oh, I, uh, got in trouble.”
“The fuck you mean you got in trouble? You’re supposed to be toeing the line. I explained that.”
“It wasn’t my fault! Not really. I was just doing my job, and someone moved something in my way. I fell over it, sending millions of dollars of diamonds scattering around the floor. It was a whole thing. I was told to stay home until they could decide what to do with me.”
That kind of worked in our favor, I guess.
“You didn’t get a look at the guy in your house?” Miko asked as we drove around for what felt like too long, making me think that he was trying to make sure we didn’t have a tail before going to the hotel.
“I only saw his feet before you guys came in.”
“You didn’t recognize him?” I asked Miko.
“Was too busy trying not to get punched in the face to really pay attention. But, no, I don’t think I knew him.”
“Chuck, did you know Henry’s roommate?” I asked.
“Henry had a roommate? He never mentioned it.”
Great.
Well, we would just have to hope that the Zeno guy could work some magic.
“Did you get enough sleep to do this drive?” I asked when we finally turned into the lot of the hotel, figuring we could delay checkout for a few hours to let him get some rest.
“I’ll be fine. Come on, let’s get our shit so we can go grab some coffee and get back home.”
Get back home.
Those three words should have filled me with relief. Instead, as I climbed out of the SUV, all I felt was an unexpected sort of sadness.
After about a thousand comments from Chuck about the hotel’s décor, the cost of it, and how big a shame it was that we couldn’t spend the day there, we were finally on our way back to Manhattan.
“So, how’d you guys meet?” Chuck asked in a singsong voice as he leaned between the seats again, even though Miko asked him three times to stop doing it.