Page 45 of Alonzo

Vann looks right past Belinda and his eyes lock with mine. “Key West, huh?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You like this guy?”

“I did. Not anymore?”

“Why? Because he’s got ink?”

“In my experience, Vann Vaughn, men with ink like that are typically up to something wicked.”

“Ink like mine?” His eyes dart to Belinda’s.

She holds her hands up. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got nothing against men with ink.”

“Then what is your problem, Belinda?”

She leans back into her seat. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Vann looks over his shoulder at her. “Forget it.” His eyes find mine again. “We have to go somewhere. And Key West is as good a place as any until we can figure out what to do.”

“Whoa. Whoa.” Belinda leans forward again. “We don’t have to go anywhere. We have a local FBI contact to call.”

“Belinda.” Vann’s voice is stern and low. Like he’s losing patience with her. “You can’t call the FBI. You can’t trust them. How do you think this Diablo guy found Tara in the first place? They’re dirty.”

She sneers at him. “Then why did it take him two freaking years to find her, huh? If he’s so fucking smart and well-connected he should’ve been here a long time ago.”

“Look, I don’t have time to explain the entire Fort Collins FBI backstory right now. But trust me on this.” Vann looks at me for this part. “If you call them, all of this is out of your control. If you let me handle this, we do it your way, Tara.”

“What’s her way?” Belinda snaps. There’s a lot of tension between these two right now. Something to ask about later when Belinda and I are alone. If we don’t get caught by Diablo first.

Vann doesn’t answer her. He just stares at me. “Did you like him?”

“Lonnie?” I sigh and stare out the window. It’s snowing so hard right now, Diablo could be ten feet in front of us and we wouldn’t be able to see him. Plus side—he wouldn’t be able to see us, either. And unless he’s got some kind of souped-up Jeep or truck like Vann’s, he’s not going to be able to follow us right now. So I allow myself a moment to think about Vann’s question. “Yeah. I liked him. I’m so fucking disappointed that he lied.”

“Oh, my God,” Belinda moans. “Just forget about stupid Lonnie, OK? Vann’s trying to talk you into going to Key West, Tara. And we are not going to Key West. Ever.”

“I’m sorry,” Vann says. “Do you have some kind of personal problem with Key West, Belinda?”

“What? No. You’re trying to talk her into outing her catfisher. Nothing about that is a good idea.”

Vann starts to protest but I’m still replaying Belinda’s words back in my head so I tune him out. I tune them both out.

Outing. My. Catfisher.

Hmm.

There’s a plan.

I have to agree with Belinda. It’s probably a very bad idea. Online dating isn’t like real-life dating. People lie all the time. It’s practically part of the game. And when you catch them in the lie you might send a snarky text or some kind of screenshot proof if you’re really invested in exposing said lie. But you do not, under any circumstances, go hunt that person down and confront them in person. I don’t care that there’s a TV show out there trying to normalize that kind of behavior. It’s just… going too far.

But Lonnie and I… we really weren’t an online thing. We were much more than that.

Much more.

Two freaking years! That’s not nothing.

And do I really need to state the obvious?