Page 121 of Burn Bag
I inched my way toward the stairs, so close to freedom, when Daphne called my name.
“Oh, hey, babe! I have a few more bags in the trunk. Would you mind getting them for me?”
Gritting my teeth, I cursed myself for being too slow. “Sure thing!” I answered happily, though I was really beating myself up. At least I escaped the worst of the stories. There were definitely more of them. I didn’t know a single woman who could go shopping and not come home with a tale or two.
I looked in the back and sighed. “A few bags, huh?”
The whole fucking trunk was loaded with bags upon bags of useless crap that we didn’t need and would possibly never even open. I rifled through a few of them, wondering why we even needed so many cat toys. There was a cat tower, and another bag held about a dozen tiny fake mice. Christ, I was going to have crap all over the house to step on.
I started loading the bags up, but there were too many to take in one trip. I took them straight into the kitchen where Harper and Daphne were talking in hushed tones. As soon as I got close enough, they went ramrod straight and smiled at me.
Smiled a little too hard, but I ignored them and went back outside to load up the rest of the bags. The last thing I wanted was any part in theirschemes. Whatever they were doing, they could keep it for themselves. For all I knew, they were in talks with Fox about building his cat army. As long as no more cats entered my home, everything would be fine.
Maybe that’s what all this crap was for. Maybe none of this would actually end up in my house, but in this cat sanctuary Fox had started to build. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I grabbed the last of the bags and shut the trunk with my elbow, determined to drop the bags and run. Whatever they were plotting, I wanted no part of it. And like I imagined, the moment I walked into the living room and headed toward the kitchen, their conspiratorial whispers died and those charming smiles returned.
“Well, that’s everything. I need to hit the head.”
“Wait!” Daphne called out, panic lacing her voice. “Um…I didn’t tell you about…about the accident.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, anger rushing through me. “You were in an accident?”
“No!” She chuckled, walking over to me and tapping my chest with her finger. “No, not us. We witnessed an accident.”
“Oh. Was it bad?”
She bit her lip, her eyes darting over my shoulder. I turned my head, but saw nothing. Maybe I was imagining that she was acting weird. It had to be because I saw literally nothing. I was letting my imagination run away with me.
“Uh…yeah, it was… horrible.”
“What happened?”
“What?”
“The accident,” I pressed.
“Uh…” She frowned, thinking really hard before her face brightened. “Oh! The accident!”
Sighing heavily, I was about to turn away and forget about the whole fucking thing when she grabbed my arm and dragged me back.
“Well, see, we were on First Street?—”
“No, it was Second,” Harper interrupted.
“Was it?”
“Yeah, because remember, we saw that kid on the bike, and youstarted telling me about how you used to have a bike just like that as a kid.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Daphne laughed.
“And?” I said, hoping to move the story along.
“Well, it’s really not that interesting. The bike was blue and had these big handlebars and gigantic wheels?—”
“Not the bike,” I snapped, already losing my patience. “The accident. You were about to tell me about an accident.”
She burst out laughing, slapping her forehead. “Oh, right. Of course, you would want to hear about the accident and not the type of bike I had as a kid. That would just be silly.”
