Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead(Finlay Donovan #2)(30)

“Finlay!” Vero hissed. Hang up the phone! We have to go! she mouthed.

“Thank you,” the woman said cheerily. “That’s all I needed. I’ll let dispatch know to cancel the request for a property check.”

I stared at the phone as the monitoring service disconnected, still trying to piece together what had just happened. The only word that had been spoken, even faintly, was my name. But it had six letters.

Had my name been Steven’s safe word?

“How much time do we have before the cops get here?” Vero asked, pulling me out of a daze.

“They’re not coming,” I said. She sagged against the wall and pressed a hand to her chest. “Did you find Steven’s books?”

Vero held up her phone.

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”





CHAPTER 15


I switched off Bree’s desk lamp, nearly tripping over Vero in the dark as I turned to go. She stood motionless beside the front window, staring down the long gravel road toward the entrance of the farm. A glare skated over the glass as headlights swung toward the trailer.

“Shit!” Vero ducked. “Is it Steven?”

I peered around her through the slats. “I don’t think so.” The lights were still too far away to know for sure, but they seemed too low to the ground to be Steven’s pickup.

The beams cut through the glass, shining right at us. We dropped to the floor, our backs pressed to the wall under the window as shadows stretched across the room. I shut my eyes, listening to the steady, slow crunch of gravel under tires. Both of us gasped as the headlights extinguished and the trailer went black.

I twisted up onto my knees and peeked between the blinds. The dark outline of a sedan crept steadily closer.

“You think it’s the cops?” Vero asked.

I swung back around, palms sweaty against the floor. The lady at the security company had said she would cancel the alarm, but maybe I hadn’t given her the safe word fast enough. “They’re probably just doing a quick check of the place. We parked behind the trailer. They can’t see your car from the parking lot. If we’re quiet, maybe they’ll go.”

“You think they saw the lights from the road?”

“I don’t know.” The car hadn’t turned onto the gravel road until after I’d switched off the desk lamp, but the trees along the edge of the property were bare of leaves and the night was clear. It was anyone’s guess what the police might have seen from the road if they’d been looking this way.

“Come on!” Vero said, grabbing my hand. “We’ll jump out the back window.”

“We can’t leave! They’re too close.” Even if we did manage to make it to the car, they’d see our taillights if we tried to escape through the rear of the farm, the way we’d come. “Let’s just stay calm. They might not even get out of their car. It’s safer to stay hidden and wait until they’re gone.”

We pressed our backs to the wall as the car crawled to a stop in front of the trailer. I listened for the telltale squawk of a police radio through the thin window glass above our heads, but all I heard was the low purr of the engine as it idled.

A car door clicked open. A foot crunched down. Then another. Vero squeezed my hand as the footsteps grew closer, stopping right behind us. Vero made the sign of the cross, her mouth moving in prayer through an excruciating silence. We both gasped as a long, forceful stream of fluid spattered against the siding.

“Is he pissing?” Vero hissed. I clapped a hand over her mouth as the spatter waned to a slow dribble. A pause followed, broken by the familiar scrape of a cigarette lighter. Vero tore my fingers away from her face and whispered, “Is he seriously taking a smoke break now?”

I tipped my head back, eyes squeezed shut. It could take him a full five minutes to finish that damn cigarette. And if he happened to walk around the trailer while he did, he might spot Vero’s car. Or worse, peer inside the back windows and see us.

“Just stay still,” I whispered, clutching her hand as the lighter scraped again. “It’s dark in here. He probably can’t see any—”

The window shattered. We hit the floor as shards rained over our heads and glass smashed against the opposite wall. The car’s engine roared outside, its tires spinning, the spray of gravel against the siding lost in a sudden whoosh.

The room erupted in flames around us. I pushed up on my knees, dragging Vero up beside me, coughing as the air thickened with fumes. Black smoke poured through the broken window. I waved it from my face in time to catch the flash of taillights fishtailing onto the road.

Vero tugged me toward the door. “We have to go!”

I turned back to the room. The fire was already climbing the walls, its fingers curling over the arms of the sofa, staining the ceiling black. I darted feverish glances around the office, wondering what, if anything, I could save. This trailer held everything Steven had worked for, and it was going up in flames before my eyes.

Vero grabbed me by my coat, shouting over the crackle and hiss. “We have to get out of here, Finlay! Now!”

The smoke chased us as we stumbled out of the trailer. Vero rushed to get the car while I locked the door behind us. My hands shook as I fought with the key, the metal already hot. The Charger’s engine growled to life, the headlights painting eerie beams through the thick pockets of smoke as it rounded the corner.