Page 63 of Intent to Kill
Dan, Paul, and Carlos, who were all sitting calmly around the dining table, jumped in alarm. Only a few seconds behind, Mercedes rushed in after him.
“Adam, what are you looking for?” she said, out of breath.
“What’s going on?” Dan asked.
“Not sure yet,” Mercedes said, she closed the door behind her.
“God fucking dammit!” Adam shouted when he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
“What is it?” Carlos asked again.
“Something’s going on, I swear,” Adam said.
Dan, Carlos, and Paul all turned to Mercedes.
“We overheard Dorian and T.B. talking, something is going down today, in–” she checked her watch, “–well, an hour and fifteen minutes now.”
Paul looked toward Adam and gave him an authoritative stare to signal that he needed to calm down. But Adam was having none of it.
“I cannot let Blake get the upper hand,” Adam said. “We have to be smarter, better, stronger than we were last time. He cannot surprise us.”
“Seriously, what is he going on about?” Carlos said.
Mercedes sighed, a chair scraping to indicate she was sitting, too. “Dorian said something about the stolen drugs and the girls not mattering. Not after—an hour and thirteen minutes now.”
Adam sank into his lounge chair and held his head in his hands. The weight of his obsession with Blake hung heavy over his shoulders and imprisoned his mind.
“He’s planning something,” Paul said.
“Obviously,” Dan said, rolling his eyes. “But how the fuck are we supposed to know what?”
“Wait a minute,” Carlos frowned. He’d been silent so far. Adam lifted his head hopefully. Carlos was always observant. If there was something, surely Carlos, always pushed to the shadows but with his eyes and ears open, would know something. “What’s Blake doing today?”
“Uh,” Mercedes said. “I don’t know—ribbon cutting at some opening, and then fuck knows what.”
The others were intrigued now, too, judging from their wide eyes. Even Mercedes paled a little bit as she realized what she said.
“When has heeverdone a ribbon cutting?” Paul said. “Ever.”
“It’s a front,” Adam said, picking up on the train of thought. “Blake’s securing himself an alibi.”
“For what?” Dan threw his hands in the air. “There could be thousands of things going on at that time.”
Adam’s shoulders dropped, even as the rest of his body tensed. An awkward combination. He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing his own fucking ignorance and stupidity. There, on the floor among the papers he’d already discarded, was a slip of paper.
“Fuck,” Adam said, picking the paper up from the floor. He slammed it down on the table in front of his friends, imploring them to take a closer look as well.
They leaned in tight to read it. It was the ballot that Mercedes had stolen from Blake. It looked the same as it did the last time they saw it, with Dorian Blake’s name pre-selected on all the boxes.
“It’s the same ballot,” Carlos pointed out.
“Read the dates,” Adam said.
They synchronously whipped their eyes back to the paper and read again.
“June 17th,” Paul stuttered. “That’s five months too early.”
“Which means...” Adam couldn’t finish the sentence.
