Page 31 of Hell In A Handbasket
“I don’t think you’re gonna get a chance to punch her in the face, Minnnnka. She’s kinda protected, and you’re not sneaky.”
“She’s gotta sleep sometime.”
“Yeah,” Jay snickers, hovering close by and doing his duty: securing his wife’s enemy. “ExceptIdon’t have to sleep. It’s a long story. Have you ever seen a case where a man was shot in the head and lived to tell the tale?” He fists sour worms and shoves them into his mouth. “I’m still totally normal, too. The bullet caused no harm, except to my sleep.”
“Sure, Bishop. Totally normal.” Chuckling, I step in Minka’s way. “You’re not gonna get a chance to kill her in her sleep, babe. What’s your next plan?”
“She likes to eat.” She looks up with bright eyes that verge on crazy. “Remember that case we had recently? With the poisoned pie?”
“No pie for my wife,” Jay laughs. “Noted.”
“Archer,” she whines. “She cooked up an entire emergency, all so she could violate Aubree’s wishes and strap a fucking neuro headset thing to her brain.”
“I mean…” Again, Jay interrupts us with a grin. “If she wereactuallyable to read minds, she’d have seen this coming, no? She would have known. Which, in itself, is the experiment.”
“Bishop, you need to back the fuck up.” I grab Minka’s arm in one hand and push him back with the other. “I swear to Christ, she’s got a whole bunch of homicidal rage bottled up. I’ve been managing it for over a year now, but there’s gonna come a point where she explodes, and I won’t be able to clean up the mess before it hits you.”
“Stop speaking about me like I’m not right here!” Minka tears free of my grip and goes back to pacing. “This was dirty, even for Sophia. It was underhanded and erosive to the foundation our friendship was built upon.”
“Babe—”
“Lying is shit between friends! I could respect her before. She annoyed me, and the audacity,something she wasnever lacking, irritated me. But at least she was honest in everything she said and did.”
“She wanted to see you, Mayet.” Despite my warnings, Jay slowly approaches. “We had this wedding to come to anyway, and she figured bringing you could be f?—”
“She wanted to see Aubree!”
“Well… sure. She wanted to see Emeri, too. But you gotta recognize she doesn’tunderstandthis. She’s logical, like you. She’s all about numbers and data and having proof and avenging people who’ve been wronged. Like you.”
“Hey!” I snap out. “We don’t fucking talk about that in public, asshole.”
He raises his hands in surrender, but he looks past me to Minka. “You and Soph are so fucking similar, it’s wild. But then she finds out about Emeri, and that’s not something a logical mind can process or accept.”
“No one is asking her to accept it! No one is even asking Sophia to interact with Aubree. They live completely separate lives.”
“But Emeri exists, and because she does, Soph is compelled to understand her. She’s not always honorable, Mayet. But she’s never harmful.”
“Not harmful? She’s a hired gun, Jay! She’s a weapon, and her body count has nothing to do with men who’ve visited her bed.”
“As. Are. You,” he sneers. “And only ever to protect those who’ve been wronged. You’re the same fucking kind. She’s just louder, which annoys the woman who doesn’t particularly like noise. You,” he adds with a chuckle. “You’re that wom?—”
“I know who you mean!” Furious, she wraps her hand around my wrist and strides toward the diner. “We’re leaving. Aubree!” She draws her best friend around—the one who similarly paces, under the watchful gaze of Tim and Corey. Jesus, these men are trained well. Then she circles her free hand in the air. “Pack it up. We’re leaving. Turns out we’re gonna get home by dinnertime after all.”
“You have no ride.” Soph waits in the diner doorway, her shoulder pressed to the frame, one foot kicked over the other. “There are no for-hire cars in this hillbilly town, and his,” she nods toward Felix, “plane already left.”
“So we’ll call it back.” Minka snatches out her phone and unlocks the screen. “We’ll call a cab. Easy.”
“You could try. But I suspect you’ll find your phone isn’t working very well all the way out here.”
“What—” Minka studies her screen. “No, I?—”
“And yours.” She meets my eyes. And since she’s a master fucking manipulator, she looks to Micah, too. “None of your phones have reception. That’s so weird, huh?”
“I do!” Fletch marches closer and presents his phone. “I’ve been texting my daughter.”
“Because I’m a generous person. I’m not cruel, and if someone attempted to keep me from my children, I’d end their lives in a heartbeat. You can call and text her, but you’ll find the rest of your phone similarly disabled.” She clicks her tongue, bringing her gaze back to me. “So odd that you would find yourselves unable to communicate with the outside world so suddenly, right?”
“Fix it, Sophia.” Minka shoves her phone into her back pocket. “Fix it now. Or Fletch will simply call his daughter and have them order our plane back.”
