Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 13 - CLOVER
Ho. Lee. Shit.
He’s setting me up!
He’s using me to get back at his father. He’s gonna get us caught on purpose. He never intended to let me go. Hell, for all I know, this waystation place doesn’t even exist. He brought me down to this forbidden city to rub his father’s face in his own bad parenting.
“Why are you looking at me that way?”
I just stare at Riggs with an open mouth.
“Clover?”
I let out a breath. “What?”
“Why are you looking at me that way?”
I press my lips together. I’ve underestimated him. I fell into the idea that he has a conscience. But I knew better. He spewed all those threats at me—vile, repulsive, gross threats about letting me rot and decay in my own basement—and the very first time he turns on the charm, I fall for it.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Clover? What’s wrong?”
I need to up my game, that’s what I need to do. All that talk about trust and whatever. Such bullshit! “Nothing,” I say. And to my surprise, my outer voice is calm despite the inner one roaring inside my head.
He’s just about to object and start questioning me thoroughly when a phone rings.
We both get to our feet and start looking around. But then Riggs is crossing the room to a table and a moment later he picks it up. “Yeah.” There’s a pause while he listens, then he smiles. “Yeah. Well, I didn’t think I’d get done this quick.” Another pause. “It’s all set. There’s no problem there. But hey, I brought someone with me.”
He looks at me and has the audacity to smile. What a jerk.
“My neighbor from Kingfisher. Her name is Hattie. She came to check on me. You know how my father is.” There’s laughing on the other end, I can hear it. “But we’re not staying long. Leaving on the train tomorrow, in fact.” Riggs is still smiling at me, then starts nodding to whoever is on the other line. “Yeah. Sure. We’ll be there.” Then he hangs up. “Well, that was Ike Monroe. They know we’re here, obviously. And I knew we’d never get into the city without him knowing. But he wasn’t expecting you, also obviously, so now we need to have dinner with him.”
I’m failing to understand how the first of these things leads to the second, but it’s not even worth questioning. He’s taking me to dinner with Ike so Ike sees me and this whole charade gets uncovered. Then Ike will contact Riggs’s father and well, obviously, I am not this Hattie person and that’s it. I’m dead and Riggs gets his revenge.
“Is that OK?” Riggs asks.
“You’re trying to get me killed.”
“What?” He actually has the gall to laugh. “What are you talking about? I’m saving you, Clover. Not trying to get you killed.”
“You’re trying to get back at your father—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He puts up both hands, pressing them at me. “That’s not true.”
“You just admitted it!”
“Because it’s… kind of like a… consolation prize should things go wrong.”
“And then”—I glare at him—“you accept a dinner invitation to Ike Monroe’s? What the hell?”
“I can’t tell him no. That would be a huge red flag. We go, we eat a nice meal, we come back here, and tomorrow morning we get on the train. That’s it. It’s gonna work, I swear. And as fun as getting back at my father sounds, you’re dead wrong about me wanting to get caught. If I get caught…” He’s shaking his head at me. “Fuck that. I’m not going back to those tunnels. Never. I’d rather die than go back there.”
He puts up a hand to shut me up because I’m about to interject here with a great big ‘ah-ha!’ “And before you go jumping to conclusions about that one, I don’t want you to get caught either. They would kill you, Clover. One hundred percent, they would kill you. And… well… I… you’ve… grown on me. You’re…” He pans a hand at me. “Attractive. And… a little bit fun. Not to mention gutsy, in a princess kind of way. I don’t want to get you killed, I really don’t.”
I blink at him. Then narrow my eyes. “Are you coming on to me?”
His smile is immediate. “Maybe.”
“Well, save it, mister. I’m not interested. And I don’t believe you. There’s no way you’re as altruistic as you’re making yourself out to be. Altruistic men don’t threaten to stuff my dead body into a trailer, drive it to the lake, back it into the water and let it decompose for months before being found.”
“How the hell do you even recall those threats?” He blinks at me. “I mean, it was heat-of-the-moment shit, Clover. I was never gonna kill you like that.”
My eyebrows shoot up my forehead and my mouth falls open. “Like that? Like that?”