Page 106 of Burn Bag

“See? He loves them. How could he possibly be mad at you for those cats?”

“But what about his truck?”

“He never liked this truck anyway,” he smiled.

“You’re sure?”

He scoffed. “Oh yeah. He’s gonna be happy you gave him a reason to get a new truck. Trust me. It’ll all be fine.”

The panic inside me eased slightly, but the adrenaline from the accident was still pounding inside me. I just wanted a do-over. To pretend this day never happened and I was back at home, not driving his truck.

Maybe if I closed my eyes, that would happen.

I squeezed them tight, said a prayer, and opened them. Nope, still in a fucked up truck with a bald man staring at me.

26

KAVANAUGH

“I hate security installs.People in the middle of nowhere should just have a shotgun on hand. By the time anyone gets here, they’ll be dead anyway,” I muttered.

“Zoe says it’s not for the police, but for her.”

“In what way? So she can die awake instead of being shot while sleeping peacefully in her bed?”

“Easy,” he snapped. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

“I know, but she’s safe. I’m talking about everyone else.”

“It’s because if she hears the alarms go off, she has time to slip out the window and run away before they can get to her.”

I stopped working and stared at him. “And you’re okay with this?”

He shrugged. “I suppose it has its own form of logic.”

“That she would abandon your kids and run out the window, leaving them behind to a murderer?”

He scowled at me. “Well, nothing’s perfect.”

I chuckled, going back to my job. “That’s some fucked up logic.”

“Not any worse than half the other shit these women think of. I’m sure Daphne has a few ‘ideas’ of her own that grate on your nerves.”

I didn’t even want to think of all the things Daphne would come up with in the years to come. I was still getting to know her. Therehad to be a shit ton of things coming my way that would shock the hell out of me.

“Well, I don’t know any yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

“What’s that like? Seriously?”

I glanced over at him, unsure of what he meant. “What’s what like?”

“The whole marrying a stranger. Doesn’t it freak you out that you’ll wake up one morning and find out something absolutely horrible about her?”

“Not really.”

“And then you’ll just have to go on with your life because you already pledged yourself to her for better or worse. I mean, what if she’s like really fucked up?”

That had me pausing. “Fucked up, how?”

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