Page 92 of Provocation
He side-eyes me. ‘What are you gonna tell your boss?’
‘That I got here and he never showed.’
Sal nods. ‘I’ll drive his car out to the boonies tonight.’ He glances at Daisy who’s still sitting at the table eating. ‘I don’t have the money.’
I nod. ‘You and your daughter keep what my girl did between us, and you don’t need to worry about it.’
He nods as he sweeps up the now red sawdust into a pile and then asks his daughter to get the bleach. ‘Go,’ he says to us.
Without another word, I approach Daisy at the table.
‘Come on,’ I say quietly.
She stands, bringing her crust with her and we leave. I think that the night will suddenly feel less surreal once we get out of Sal’s, but as we climb into the truck, it all actually feels worse.
I message the guys to meet us outside the club.
‘We still need to go to the lab at Richmond U,’ Daisy says, looking out the window.
‘You still want to?’ I ask carefully.
‘Still needs to be done.’ Her face is blank.
‘Right.’
We’ll just drive around more with a dead body in the back.
We go a few more minutes down the road, and neither of us talk. But I keep replaying everything over and over in my head. Daisy just stares out at the dark trees.
‘I told you to stay in the truck,’ I finally say.
‘If I had, you’d be dead,’ she says, not looking at me. ‘Can you stop the car, please?’
I do as she asks, pulling over onto the side of the road. She opens the door as soon as the truck is stationary and gets out, noisily throwing up by the front wheel.
I get out and circle around to the passenger side to find her wiping her mouth. She looks up at me.
‘I had to do it, didn’t I?’ she asks quietly.
I nod. ‘He was going to kill me like you said. You saved me, Daisy.’
‘Okay.’
She gets back into the truck and so do I.
Chapter Eight
DAISY
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel when we get to the lab and grab the supplies we came for. But I keep glancing at Blake, mostly because I’m afraid he thinks I’m some kind of psycho killer, or a sociopath.
Maybe I am. This is body number two after all.
Shouldn’t I be upset?
I’m not. Well, my tummy was. It feels better after throwing up. To be honest, I’m sort of just glad I didn’t get blood on my new coat.
Is that something a sociopath would think about? I try to remember how I actually felt after I killed Larson, but nothing comes to me. As usual, it’s blank.
