Page 94 of Veiled in Brick

Claire shook her head quickly. “What—what about your father, what did he have to say—”

Liam held up a hand, effectively cutting off her words, and he moved his focus to the waitress who had returned to the table.

“Hi,” Liam crooned at her with a freckle-stretching grin. “Can I get some tacos to-go?” The girl nodded, pulled out her notebook to write down Liam’s order, and he rapidly fired off a list of four different à-la-carte tacos. She scribbled them on her pad, skipped off to place his order, and Liam announced, “I am fuckin’ starving.”

I laughed softly at his usual chipper candor, thrilled that it had made its return, and Claire interjected once more in a ramble:

“I—back up, why are we feeling better about this situation all of the sudden? Liam, did your father do anything? Say anything? Whose camera is in our hallway? Do we even know if it’s there for sure? I mean, I haven’t seen one—”

“Baby,” Luke spoke to her in a quiet voice. “Easy—one question at a time.”

“Ah,” I began, “Carter did plenty—had someone keep tabs on Liam, his sister, and me—”

Claire interrupted with a well-placed, “That motherfu—”

“However,” I stopped her, “he doesn’t seem to be doing any harm and he also told Carter about the camera he saw in the hallway at our place, so…seems unrelated.”

“Oh,” Claire replied with a dawning realization, “so you think the guy planted a camera? Have you seen it? Of course, you haven’t, we’ve all been here—”

“You’re ahead of yourself, baby,” Luke murmured.

“Er—one, maybe, we don’t know. Two, no, we have not—but Jay has, and he’s trying to get any footage off of it now.” I reached for the half-full lowball glass in front of Claire and brought it to my face. “Is this alcohol?”

“Yes, but—”

I sipped the clear liquid without a further thought, and upon the blunt taste of salt and stinging tequila hitting my tongue, I spat it back into her cup.

“Jesus, Claire—”

“I was gonna drink that,” she complained. “Thanks for the backwash.”

“Are you drinking fuckin’ straight tequila with a salted rim?” I asked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Is that basically a gigantic shot? Fuck me, that’s strong.”

“Good God, you’re like a hummingbird with ADHD. One subject at a time, Zoey.” Claire complained.

I squinted my eyes at her, for she was the one who was asking several questions at once not a minute earlier. I pointed at her chest, stating with a voice that was strained due to the burn of an alcoholic beverage, “Pot,” I moved the finger to myself, “kettle.”

She sighed heavily, “First of all, it’s a tequila soda…I think they accidentally rimmed it with salt because they started to make a margarita out of habit or something—I’m not hating it, doesn’t matter. You’re such a wimp when it comes to alcohol that’s not laced with sugar. Thank you for spitting it back into my glass. To the actual important subject at hand—you talked with Jay and he’s looking through this camera?”

“Uh huh,” I replied. “I will send him the case number Randy gave us a few days ago…” I fished my phone out of my jeans’ pocket and did so immediately, and once the message to James with a long string of letters and numbers was officially sent, I set my phone on the table with the glass face down. “And he said if he found anything, he’d bring it to the police before we get back.”

“Oh,” Claire thought to herself for a moment, “so…we can relax for tonight?”

“Yep,” I replied to her with a smile. “And if Jay finds anything like we’re expecting him to, this all may be behind us soon.”

Luke tossed back the remains of what looked to be a lager of some sort, set the glass back on the table, and asked, “So, now what?”

“Dinner and crash at my parents’ place; drive back first thing in the morning?” I voiced to the group, and they all nodded in somewhat of disbelief.

I didn’t think that any of us actually believed that we would make it to a casual, relaxed state in this entire mess. Though I had been actively seeking it out, I didn’t believe that I even expected to achieve that sort of solace. But, as we all slowly gathered our things and Liam awaited his doggy-bag filled with no less than a pile of tacos, I could tell that the sentiment was felt amongst us all.

We sauntered back to my car, and it wasn’t long before Liam was interrupting the jovial silence as we drove down the road. He spoke once he finished his second to-go taco as he sat in the passenger seat beside me.

“Hey Zo’?”

Crumpling the foil that it came in, he tossed it into the brown paper bag that sat at his feet and reached for a third. I smiled as he unwrapped it, slightly turning the wheel as I followed signs for Highway 140, and replied:

“Yes?”

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