Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead(Finlay Donovan #2)(26)

I frowned at the three stockings she’d hung on the mantel. I didn’t care what Steven said. Vero and I might not have known each other for long, or even very well, when she’d stumbled into the garage and helped me bury a body, but she was family now. I made a mental note to stop at the mall this week to purchase an extra stocking.

“Has she posted yet?” Vero asked as she bent over her work, lights strewn over her arms.

I checked my phone again. “Not yet.”

We’d spent the last few hours Googling the dark web browsers Cam had recommended, figuring out how to download them to each of our laptops and phones. After that, we’d logged in to the women’s forum to see if FedUp had responded, but there had been no activity on the thread since I’d posted my offer at the food court. A single direct message had been waiting in my inbox—two words from EasyClean: Back off.

“You seem tense,” Vero said as I snapped the cap off one of Delia’s magic markers.

“Of course I’m tense. What if FedUp hasn’t written back to me because she’s already hired EasyClean?”

“Doubt it. EasyClean wouldn’t waste time messaging you if she knew she had the job. She’s just trying to scare you off. You sure that’s all that’s bugging you?”

“What else would be bugging me?” I tested a marker against the long sheet of art paper I’d unspooled across the carpet. It was dried out.

“Heard from Julian yet?”

“No.” I ground my teeth as the nub of the marker tore through the paper. Five days had passed since he’d left for Florida, and still not a peep. “He said he’d text when he gets home.”

“When’s that?”

“I didn’t ask.” Vero raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m not his mother. I’m his…” Hell, I didn’t know what I was to Julian. “And don’t you dare make any more wisecracks about my age.”

She shoved a handful of popcorn in her smug, grinning mouth. “So are you going to go out with Nick?” she asked, wagging her eyebrows.

I’d made the mistake of telling Vero about Nick’s casual invitation to catch up sometime. Ever since, she’d been hovering over my cell phone, waiting for him to call. Although, if I was being honest with myself, I might have been hovering a little more than usual, too. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was checking for texts from Julian or from Nick. Or which of those two possibilities I was more anxious about.

“I’m pretty sure catching up with Nick would be a mistake.”

“I disagree. I think your editor’s onto something. Who’s going to keep your heroine company while her attorney is missing? A second love interest would definitely spice things up.”

My phone pinged. Vero dove for it, her hand closing around it before mine could, her body twisting away from me as she punched in my passcode. Her eyes bugged wide.

“Daaaaaaamn!” she breathed, holding my phone out of reach as I lunged for it. “Who do I have to kill to get forty percent of that?” My stomach did a strange little flip when I saw Julian on the screen. I grabbed the phone from her and fell back against the side of the couch, my mouth going dry as I stared at Julian’s selfie. Sand peppered his shoulders. His rose-gold chest was slick with seawater and sweat, and the low waistband of his board shorts revealed a tantalizing sliver of the taut pale skin underneath, probably just to torture me.

Wish you were here. Home in a few days. Will text when I’m back. His sun-bleached curls were wild, his smile roguish.

I glanced down at my sweats and smoothed down my mom-bun. At least I was wearing pants. Still, I was pretty sure any selfie I took right now would pale in comparison. For a second, I considered the possibility that a selfie without pants might be a more equitable response. But then I remembered what Cam had said in the garage about not doing anything stupid online, and I was pretty sure texting nudes to Julian would fall squarely in that category.

I settled on a flame emoji and typed, Can’t wait. See you soon.

Ignoring Vero’s smirk, I saved the image to my camera roll, shamelessly wondering if the resolution was high enough to make it a screen saver on my laptop.

“We should check his Instagram. I bet there’ll be more,” Vero suggested.

I locked my phone and set it facedown behind me. “No, we shouldn’t. That would be creepy and wrong.”

“Don’t even tell me you’re not curious.”

“If you’re so curious, check them from your phone.”

“I don’t have an account,” she reminded me, reaching around me and plucking my phone off the floor.

“Why not?” I asked. It had always seemed strange to me that someone as stunning and fashionable as Vero wouldn’t have a single social media account. I was pretty sure if she posted a selfie now, even in her flannel pajamas, she’d have a thousand followers within an hour.

“Because I don’t need the whole world knowing my business.”

“What about your friends?”

“You and Ramón know where to find me.” Her brow furrowed as she typed in my password and scrolled around. “Huh,” she said, frowning at the screen. “Julian’s account is set to private.”

“No, it’s not. I was just on it a few days ago.”

“I thought you said it was creepy and wrong.”