Page 87 of EverGreene
“Who else would it be from? Although it’s weird he would send anything with us both being here.”
“Well, let me know when you get home. We’ll get together and commiserate over floats made from the finest alcohol the local gas station has in stock. God, Jem is going to shit herself when she finds out the identity of your masked man.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I think so.”
“Call me if you need to talk or some other crazy shit goes down while you’re there.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s possible, what with Loche and the senior founding partner of our firm getting arrested.”
“What!”
“We’ll talk about it when I get back.”
“Goddamn it, Ever. Love you, even though a real friend would have put me on speaker phone while all of this was going down, so I could hear it in real time.”
“Love you, too.”
I had to get out of here tonight. Being here with Loche was too much, and it would be impossible for me to act like nothing had happened between us in front of Blaine and Jack, not to mention the Sawyers. Was there a bus or someone around here who picked up hitchhikers without intending totie them up and keep them in their basement until they were done with whatever depravity they had planned?
My phone rang as I was contemplating whether or not I wanted to risk becoming a future Netflix special. I was surprised to find it wasn’t Katy who, aside from the lady asking me if I wanted to renew my car’s extended warranty, was the only person who ever called me.
“Caroline, I’m sorry I never made it back,” I answered, cringing. “I’m not feeling well and didn’t think it would be in anyone’s best interest to be around me.”
That actually wasn’t a lie.
“Oh, that’s okay. It’s not like there was much left to do, anyway. The jurors are deliberating, and Blaine is telling us we can pack up the trial materials and head home if we want to. I’m just calling to see if you want to ride home with me tonight, or if you’re going to stick around with Loche.”
Had hell frozen over? Were swine taking flight? Was a plague of locusts descending upon us? Because all of those would explain why, for the first time in my life, things were coming up Ever.
“Yes, actually. I would really appreciate a ride home tonight.”
“Awesome. I really wasn’t looking forward to a long drive by myself. Meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes. We’ll load up my vehicle at the courthouse and head on out. It’s supposed to start snowing back home soon, so I want to get on the road before people forget how to drive in the snow like they always do during the first snowfall of the season.”
Some of us can’t afford snow tires and end up getting up close and personal with the ditch, Caroline.
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll be down there.”
Not about to question this sudden change in fortune, I slowly picked myself up from the cold tile floor, rising to my feet. I made my way to my bed, where I’dthrown my suitcase, and hastily stuffed all my clothes and toiletries inside, only pausing when I picked up a pajama shirt that I now knew had been sent from Loche. This t-shirt had been the most comfortable one I owned by far and featured a sleeping Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing a nightcap on the front. Below the graphic of the dinosaur was the wordTyrannosaurus. At the time, I wondered how my stalker knew I would be into something like this. Looking back, it should have been obvious after receiving many of the other things I’d received.
What was I going to do now? Return to work? Act like none of this had ever happened? With Conrad gone, would there even be a firm to go back to? Tears burned my eyes, but this time, the tears that fell had an entirely different meaning behind them.
Chapter 22
Loche
She was going to choose me. Me. Loche. Not V. Ever would have chosen me if I hadn’t fucked this all up. If I had been honest with her from the start, she might be next to me right now.
“Goddamnit,” I yelled, stopping myself from picking up a bedside lamp and chucking it across the room. Instead, the pillow I’d grabbed in place of it struck the wall with a thud and tumbled to the floor.
In my quest not to lose Ever, I’d lost Ever. And I deserved it. There was no grand gesture that was going to fix what I’d done.
My phone buzzed, indicating a text message. With the hope that it was Ever running through my head, I picked it up, deflating a bit when I saw the text was from Blaine. A verdict had been reached; the jury had awarded the Estate of Roger and Peggy Sawyer seventy-five million dollars. A huge fuck you to the automobile company and the largest verdict our law firm had ever received. If Conrad wasn’t presently behind bars,he would be taking the credit as though all the hard work for the case had been done by him and him alone.
I’d been surprised when I wasn’t arrested at the police station. Maybe I still would be if officers decided to investigate Conrad’s very truthful allegation about my illegal fight club. Thankfully, he only suspected there may be more activities and didn’t actually know about the side gig we all had roughing up pieces of shit who were too cowardly to fight someone their own size. But I had a feeling I would be watched, whether by law enforcement or by the private investigator Conrad would most likely employ to follow me around so that I could join him, making us one big happy family in the slammer.
