Page 35 of Ride Hard
Sloane
Ididn’t wantto wake up. Nottoday.
Still, my eyes opened to a semi-dark room. Either I was done sleeping or something had wokenme.
The sound of typing echoed through the motel room, and I rolled over, my mind surfacing intowakefulness.
Chaser was sitting at the table. He was fully clothed, and his hair was damp from a shower. But that wasn’t what made me sit up. He had my computer in front of him, the screen glowing as he not so gently smashed at thekeyboard.
“What are you doing with my laptop?” Idemanded.
“You need to call your blonde friend,” he replied, not even bothering to turnaround.
“My blondefriend?”
“The one with theboobs.”
“Excuse me?” It was way too early for him to insult the fairersex.
“You need to callher.”
“Why?” I groaned and rubbed my eyes. They were full of grit after crying myself to sleep last night. “You were the one who told me I couldn’t be Sloaneanymore.”
“She’s filed a missing personsreport.”
“Huh?”
So Yvette gave a shit. I’d believed it was only a marriage of convenience for covering her constant lateness, and here she was going to the cops. Thinking about Mrs. Adelstein and the security footage behind Teasers, I screwed up my face. Kinda stood to reason someone might reportsomething.
“The sooner, the better,Sloane.”
“You smashed my cell,” I said. “How am I supposed to call when I’ve got nophone?”
He tapped the table and kicked the second chair out from underneathit.
Sliding out of bed, I knew I would not like what I saw. He had a phone this entire time, along with my money, and it was a glaring indicator to my dependence on him. The illusion I had any say in what was happening was about to shatter, and boy was it going to bespectacular.
A cell phone was sitting facedown on the table next to my laptop. Looking at the screen, I saw it was plastered with a police report with my face on it. Missing person,indeed.
“They have Wi-Fi out here?” Idrawled.
“Sit down,Sloane.”
Sitting, I glanced at him out the corner of my eye. All traces of yesterday’s hero were gone. The kind words, the hint of desire, the push and pull. He was so closed off he bore a striking resemblance to a vault in FortKnox.
Picking up the phone, he turned it on and handed it to me. I stared at the screen, earning myself one of his trademarkglares.
“I don’t know her number off by heart,” I complained. “Nobody knows phone numbers anymore. It’s not nineteen ninety-five.”
Showing me the laptop screen, my mouth fell open. There was an address book that must’ve synced from my cell to the computer at some point. There was an entire list of everyone and everything I’d ever called or texted. It felt like he’d glanced up my skirt, thepervert.
“You went through mystuff?”
His eyes narrowed. “Call her, and don’t let onabout…”
“About what? Because I’ve got a lot to say about the dead bodies, thekidnapping—”
“Sloane.”
