Page 60 of Shattered Veil

I beamed. “Uh huh.”

“Another time. Maybe.” She pointed her fork, prong-end at me the moment that she finished slicing off another bite with purpose. “Maybe. I have to go soon. I’m running out of time.”

My brow pinched together. “Go?”

Despite my complaints regarding her pancake making abilities, I continued to eat, but my chewing slowed when she succinctly responded:

“Work.”

Reality of the now gut-punched me, and I coughed to clear my throat, my half-masticated, dry bite sticking in my esophagus.

“Beg—beg pardon?”

“My shift starts at five.”

I waited for a punchline to her terrible joke, but it never came. “Your shift at Gas Lamp?”

Cassie peered at me with a single, high eyebrow, “You have a problem with my work, Jay?”

I chastised, “Don’t do that, Cas.”

She innocently returned, “Do what?”

“Act like my issue with your work has nothing to do with finding out that dancers are going missing.”

As if that weren’t altogether alarming, she quipped, “Do you have an issue with it aside from that?”

My jaw hung open. “Are we really doing this right now?”

“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” she sang, splitting the last word into two husky syllables.

I rolled my eyes heavily. “Okay, fine, Jesus—as a person, no. As someone who’s one half of whatever this is…” I waved between us, and her face pinched together as I murmured, “Problem is the wrong word, but I’m not, ah, thrilled about it.”

She set her fork down with a clack against her plate, turned her body to face me, and with a tone that just slightly turned hard, she said, “Please don’t say you’re about to give me the I can do better speech.”

“I’m not. Trust me, I’m not.” I sighed in exasperation and quickly stated, “I’m just a jealous guy. It is a me problem, not a you problem, and I can deal with that, but we have bigger fucking fish-to-fry-here!” Her brief defensive demeanor was whisked away, and she pressed her lips together tightly as I continued, “My mind is nowhere near the subject of you just being a dancer, Cas. You aren’t dumb. Don’t pretend like you’re being ignorant because you’re not.”

“Okay, okay.” Cassie eyed me sympathetically. “Straight up? We don’t know anything for sure with all the stuff Colton said.”

“Come on,” I retorted. “Women. Dancers. Have gone missing. In and around Salem.”

She sighed. “I’m aware of the rumor mill. I was there for the origination of it last night, remember? I slept on it—just because we heard something from one man—”

My eyes widened, and I interjected, “The rumor mill?”

“One man,” Cassie went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “who none of you seem to trust all too much, for good reason—I’m gonna keep my skepticism on this one.”

“Okay,” I acquiesced. “You have a point, but our lack of trust in him aside, it’s all a little too coincidental, don’t you think?”

“James…I’m not up and quitting my job. Not before I know without a trace of uncertainty that something’s up. It’s not fair to my work, which is already short-staffed. It’s not fair to the other dancers who’ll inevitably have to pick up the slack.” I opened my mouth to argue that her reasoning was insane. That a job is just a job. That if she were to drop dead tomorrow, Gas Lamp would recruit a new dancer to replace her as quickly and efficiently as possible. That her livelihood—hell, her life—should be put far above a job. Cassie stopped my planned interruption with a blunt, “It’s not fair to me. I make really good money. I have great benefits. I’ve never had either of those things.”

I exhaled softly. “I get that being financially comfortable is nice, Cas, but—”

“But I don’t think you grew up poor,” she argued, and I silenced myself for a beat because she was right.

My parents still lived in their upper-class, suburban home in Roanoke—it wasn’t a mansion, and Luke and I weren’t driving luxury cars at sixteen, but we were not, by any stretch of the imagination, poor. My college tuition was paid off. I landed a job right out of school and life never gave me a chance to so much as worry about money.

“I did not.”

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