Page 78 of Like You Know
“Do you have a car?” I asked. “Is it here?”
“Yeah ...” She frowned.
“Good. Can I please borrow it? It’s an emergency.”
“Um ... I don’t know ...”
I resisted the urge to scream “IT’S AN EMERGENCY” into her face and took the pragmatic route instead. “Look, how much is it worth? Your car.”
“Like ...” She looked up to the ceiling. “Three grand, maybe?”
“OK. I’ll give you five right now if you hand over the keys.”
“What?” She bugged her eyes out.
“Five grand.” I pulled my phone out and navigated to the payment app. “Right now, for your keys. And you can have the car back when I’m done with it.”
When she continued to stare at me, wide-eyed, I waved my phone in her face. Finally, she snapped out of it and gave me her account details. After I’d transferred the money, she slid her keys over the counter to me, and I snatched them and ran for the back door.
“It’s the red Mazda!” she called after me.
I found the red compact car, set my phone up on the holder and turned on navigation, then got the hell on the road.
All I could think about was getting to my mom.
Once I was out of downtown traffic and on the freeway, I tried calling Jet again. It just rang and rang until it went to voice mail. I left him a message, but—feeling paranoid—I didn’t say the address or allude to what he was currently doing. Hopefully, my urgent tone and insistence he call me back immediately would be enough.
Then I called Donna.
She answered right away. “Hey, girl. What’s happening?”
“Hey!” I froze, my mouth opening and closing, unsure what to say or how to say it exactly.
“Have they found your mom?”
“No, there’s still no leads on that.”
Donna paused for a beat. We both knew there was a very strong lead on that—we’d heard Shady give it to us just a few hours earlier.
“That sucks.” Donna picked up what I was throwing down. “Let me grab Harlow and we can talk for a while.”
She was telling me without telling me that her computer-nerd sister would know if my phone was tapped. Spying wasn’t out of the ordinary when it came to our interactions with members of BestLyf. Harlow diligently checked our devices for spyware and whatever else, but it had been a while.
“No, that’s OK.” I was coming up to my exit and needed to focus on the road. But I wasn’t dumb enough to go into a dangerous situation without someone knowing. Fuck Calvin and his demands that I come alone and tell no one. I was coming alone, but I’d make sure I wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“I just wanted to check in, hear your voice. But I don’t have time to talk. I’m on my way to thatappointmentI’ve beenavoidingand I’m running late. They messaged me last minute, and I figured I’d go before someone elsetookit.”
“Oh, OK. Do you want me to come meet you?” I could hear the edge of worry in her voice.
“Nah, but I can’t get a hold of Jet to tell him I’ll be late for our date. Can you try calling him when he gets off work? His phone is on silent, and I don’t think he’ll get my messages.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks, D.”
“Love you, A.” It sounded as if she was saying,Be careful.
“Love you too.”