Page 9 of Broken Empire
Connor was silent for a beat. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Kill, I literally have no fucking clue what you’re going on about.”
I let out a grunt of annoyance and rubbed my temple with the heel of my hand. “You sent me a text saying you were stuck out in some random place north of Poughkeepsie, and you asked me to come and get you because no one else was answering and your phone was about to die.”
“Uhh… that wasn’t me.”
“Wait a second.” I set the call to speakerphone, took a screenshot of our text messages, and sent it to him. “Look.”
“Give me a minute. I need to get somewhere quieter.”
I heard a rustling sound as Connor walked away from his table at the club. The music and chatter faded, replaced by the faint buzz of street noise.
“Okay, I’m outside. Let me just read this thing,” Connor said. He went silent for a few beats before speaking up again, voice tinged with confusion. “I really don’t know what to tell you, man. I didn’t send this stuff to you. Here, look at my end of the chat.”
He sent a screenshot of his messages with me. The one about him having an emergency outside the city was missing.
“What the fuck is going on?” I said.
“No idea.”
I rubbed my chin. “Did someone take your phone, send that message, and delete it so you wouldn’t see it?” I asked. “That’s the only explanation I can think of for this shit.”
“Nah, no way. I’ve had my phone on me all night. Someone must’ve cloned it, or whatever the hell you call it.”
“Why would they do that?” I glanced around, taking in the old wooden bus stop and the empty road beside it. “They got me to drive all the way out to this place, but there’s no one even here.”
Connor coughed before replying. “Dunno. I guess it’s someone’s idea of a shitty joke. Have you pissed anyone off lately?”
“Yeah, I’ve pissed off about a hundred people, but they’re all in custody awaiting their trials,” I said, scraping a hand through my hair. “So it’s not going to be any of them.”
“It’s probably just one of your friends playing a prank or something.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a childish fucking prank that made me ditch Shay and drive two hours north for no reason, so it’s not funny.”
“I swear, it wasn’t me,” Connor said. “Someone must’ve hacked my phone.”
“It’s fine, I believe you. I’m just pissed this happened,” I said tersely. “Anyway, gotta go. I have to drive all the way back now.”
I ended the call and sent a quick text to Shay.On my way back. Keep the party going for me.
She hadn’t answered any of my check-in calls earlier, but I figured she was probably having too much fun with Cori and her other friends to think about checking her phone.
It fucking sucked that I hadn’t been a part of that fun so far. I was looking forward to spending the night with her, letting loose for the first time in weeks, but now some asshole had come along and wrecked it with a dumbass prank that even a twelve-year-old would agree wasn’t even remotely amusing.
I could still fix things, though. If I drove fast, I could make it back to the city just after eleven. Hopefully, the girls would still be out then, and we could salvage what was left of the night.
When I finally made it back to the Spring Street gallery, I found it closed with all the lights off. The event was already over.
I tried calling Shay again, but she didn’t answer. I sent her another text.Hey. Where are you? Did you guys go somewhere else after the gallery thing?
I went back to my car and waited. After ten minutes passed with zero response from Shay, I tried to call her again. It rang out.
I dialed my doorman’s number next. He answered right away. “Mr. Knight. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, John. I was just wondering—did Shay come home already?”
