Page 4 of Volatile Vice
Dad’s tone is artificially even. “Did you cancel it at the very last minute?”
“I did.”
“I see.” Dad pauses. “Your mother and I went to a movie last night. We got back late and went straight to bed. This morning, she got up to check on you, and…”
“What, Dad? I wasn’t there? I’m sorry, I should have called to?—”
“No, it’s not that.” Dad clears his throat. “She found…someone else in your bed.”
My blood runs cold. “What?”
“Yes.” Dad pauses. “It was…a body.”
My heart is pounding out of my chest. “A body? Like…adeadbody?”
“Yes.” Dad’s voice is shaking through the phone. “The lawyer. Mr. Latham. His throat slit wide open.”
Oh my God, oh myGod…
“There was a note on your nightstand next to him. Handwriting I don’t recognize.”
A note? Oh God, did he kill himself? He seemed pretty level-headed. Surely a broken date wouldn’t be something that would drive him to…
There’s no way.
I draw in a shaky breath. “What did it say?” I whisper.
I can hear Dad shudder from the other end of the line before he finally speaks again.
“Your move, Cobra.”
Cobra? Fear surges through me. What does that mean? How did?—
“How… The house… How…”
“Somehow the security system was disarmed,” Dad says, his low voice a monotone. “It’s state of the art. I don’t know how it happened.”
My father’s voice sounds…unsure. Unsure and frightened. And my father never sounds unsure and frightened. Even when I was sick, he kept his strength. He never let me see his fear for me. He knew I needed him to be strong.
And now…
Everything comes back to me in a swarm of memories.
The Uber driver. The phone call to Vinnie. The burner phone with instructions—the phone I still have. Telling Vinnie about everything in my backyard. The dark drone flying above us. And then him leaving.
Fear envelops me. When Vinnie was here, I wasn’t feeling fear. I was feeling comfort, safety.
Love.
But now that he’s gone…
I’m ready to be back on my own. But not before I have a professional come to my house and make sure there’s absolutely no surveillance equipment here.
I have a state-of-the-art alarm system, too. If someone got through my father’s system, they could surely get through mine. I was right to ask Vinnie if we could speak freely. If someoneiswatching me—so they can be watching Vinnie—they’re the kind of people who can easily get around any alarm system.
I want to go home now.
I want to get out of this house until I know it’s safe.