Page 7 of Grave Stone

“Hold on.” Sin turned the monitor toward me so I could see the screen. “Who’s this?”

I didn’t need to get up and move closer. I could tell from where I sat that the woman on the screen was the one who jumped out at me. And then it hit me.

It was real.

“Holy shit! That’s her.”

“You know her?”

“Never seen her before.”

“Fuck!” Sin grabbed his phone and got to his feet. “Count the money if you can. I’m gonna call Danger and check the locks.”

He left the room, but I didn’t move. I sat there staring at the woman’s face on the screen. Her eyes matched the ones I saw in the casket, but the rest of her face was unfamiliar to me.

Who the hell was she? And why the fuck was she in that casket?

5

WHITNEY

Mack woke me when we arrived at my house. I thanked him profusely and got his contact information for future rides.

Once inside, I made a beeline for the bathroom. I felt dirty and had not had time to be properly disgusted by being stuffed into what I presumed was a casket with Glenn.

Glenn’s dead.

My heart pounded in my chest as realization dawned.

I was supposed to be dead, too.

The thought had me fleeing the bathroom and running around the house, making sure each door and window was locked. Then, I locked my bedroom door, barricaded myself in my closet, and tried to call Stevie again. She didn’t answer.

Whitney: I’m home. Call me.

Stevie worked as a court reporter and was unable to answer personal calls or texts while she was in court. Glancing at my phone, I sighed with relief. I would only have to wait an hour at most.

Thankfully, Stevie called back fifteen minutes later. “You kept following him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and something happened, but I’d rather tell you about it in person,” I said carefully.

“If you believe your phone was compromised in any way, power it down fully and do not turn it back on.”

“It could’ve been,” I admitted. I had no idea what happened between following Glenn into the pawn shop and waking up with his dead body.

“I’ll do the same with mine. I’ll see you in person soon. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

While I waited for Stevie, I tried to put the pieces together, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Glenn stole my wallet and drove to the pawn shop, but he didn’t stop at an ATM, and he didn’t take any items inside to pawn. The more I thought about it, the more my head hurt.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Stevie was home. “Whitney!” she called.

“Just a sec!”

Unbarricading myself took longer than I had anticipated. When I opened my bedroom door, Stevie was standing on the other side with her arms crossed over her chest as she tapped her foot. “What the fuck is going on?” She stepped into my room, locked the door, and ushered me back to the safety of my closet. She knew me so well.

I told her everything I could remember happening after I met Glenn at the restaurant.