Page 17 of Dumbstruck
I can’t help but laugh. “I knew you were curious.”
“And?”
Pulling back, I give her my most charming smile and walk down the steps. “And you still need to earn it. We never did have ice cream.” I wink, and her groan of frustration washes away my worries. Optimism will be a much better approach with all of this.
Hank and Bonnie will do fine, which means there’s nothing standing between me and June Harper. I have to believe that.
I stand on the sidewalk, Richie waiting in silence a few feet away, until June goes inside and locks her door. Almost the instant she’s gone, the orange cat returns to my side. This time, he has a torn piece of paper in his mouth, which he drops at my feet before head-butting me.
Curious, I bend down and pick it up, reading the words scrawled on the lined page.
If you’re going to make moves on the actor, you’d better be planning to leave town with him when the movie is finished. Or else.
Or else what? Cold dread ripples through me. Handing the page to Richie, I take one step toward June’s door but stop myself. It might not even be relevant to June, so why bother worrying her over nothing? Right before June turns off her porch light, I catch sight of a strip of something shiny in the middle of her door. Tape. With a scrap of paper that matches the tear on the note.
“They left that for June while we were out walking,” I say in horror.
Richie grunts. “You don’t know that.”
“June would have said something about it if she knew. The cat must have pulled it from the door before we got here.” I look down at the cat, who stares back up at me with ugly yellow eyes, like it knows exactly what it brought me.
“It’s not necessarily a threat,” Richie says, though he hardly sounds confident in his assessment.
“It looks like a threat to me.” Now, more than ever, I’m convinced someone is trying to get rid of us. All of the set disasters, the props trailer, Bonnie getting stuck… That’s one thing. Now they’re going after June because she agreed to go out with me? That’s not cool.
“Rich,” I say, hands clenched into fists as I start heading back toward Main Street where we left the car.
“Where are you going?” He hurries to catch up to me.
I don’t know. My thoughts are spinning, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. I feel like I need to jump into action anddosomething, but I don’t know what to do. I hate that. But I can’t sit still. I pick up my pace, nearly in a jog now.
“Jonah!” Richie grabs my arm.
I tug myself free and keep moving. “They’re going after June now,” I growl. “I’m going to stop them.”
Grabbing me again, this time Richie holds fast so I can’t escape. “You’re being irrational, Jonah. Think for a second. You don’t even know who’s doing this.”
I groan. “It’s not a ghost.”
“I know.”
His admission seems to settle something in me so I’m less amped up, my thoughts slowing. “Oh. I thought—”
“There have been too many events targeting the movie for it to be anything but sabotage,” he says with a shrug. “Sorry for losing my mind for a bit there.”
That gets a tense chuckle out of me. Richie is usually the logical one, and it bothered me more than it should have that he thought it was a ghost behind all the nonsense. “Glad you’re seeing the light, Rich.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. As for this thing with June, I’ll look into it. But maybe you should reconsider—”
“They’ve gone too far with this. We need to figure out who it is and make them stop before someone gets hurt.” BeforeJunegets hurt. It’s my fault that she got dragged into the mess, and guilt settles heavy in my gut. “I should have shown her the note instead of walking away,” I mutter, looking at the paper in Richie’s hand. We’re only a block away. I could go back…
Richie grimaces. “It’s late. I should get you back to your trailer. Show her tomorrow.”
“But—”
“Let me do my job, J.” A bit of worry enters his expression as he looks at the dark houses around us. “I don’t like you being out in the open like this after everything that’s been happening.”
I want to argue—June deserves to know about the threat—but Richie rarely gets worried like this. Even when I slip past him to interact with fans in a crowd. He’s nervous, and the last thing I want is to stress him out so bad that he quits. I wouldn’t lose just a bodyguard; I’d be losing a friend.
