Carter Reed(69)

I murmured, “How do you know all that to say to me?” Was it really that simple?

“Because I love you. You’re my friend and I’m grateful that I still have your friendship.” Her chin locked in place and she crossed her arms. “I’m pissed that Ben went to them, but I’ve realized that it had to happen. Your man was right, that’s why he took you away from us. If you had stayed with us, you were a sitting duck. They would’ve found Mallory and Ben would’ve told them what you did to save her.” She shrugged. “It had to happen. Your life or hers. Your man saved you and Ben did what he had to.”

Some of my old humor sparked in me and I grinned. “Did you really just refer to Ben as a man?”

Amanda smacked her hand to her forehead and moaned. “He’d been so pathetic over her for so long. Always panting after her, being one of those guys. He was such a creeper.”

I chuckled. “He would call the apartment when she was on dates. He always wanted me to tell him when she got home. I never did, but one time he even sent me a pizza. It was like he was trying to bribe me for information on her.”

“Mallory was so stupid.” She amended, “She was nice, but she was stupid. How could he not give her the creeps? He was her very own stalker that she treated like a friend.”

I snorted, “Or like a brother at times. There were times when he’d come over and she’d hide in the bathroom. We even had it rigged where we could slip through the window. Ben never believed me when I told him she wasn’t home. He demanded to search the apartment to see it for his own eyes.”

“He was a little crazy about her.”

“A little?” My eyebrow rose. “Try a lot, but she always said he was nice deep down. Guess she was right in some ways? He was there for her in the end.”

“Yeah, I guess. He was like the pervy cousin that was always around.”

I grinned. He was. Then my smile waned. “Why are we talking about them like they’re dead?”

“Because they are.”

My eyes shot to hers.

She shrugged, glancing away and sighing at the same time. “At least to me, they are. They’re gone. They left us behind. At least when you left, you were still working. We still texted. But they’re completely gone. No word. No call. No nothing. So to me, that’s how I think of it. They’re dead to me.”

“That’s perverse.”

“Helps me from getting hurt by them. I locked ‘em out. Maybe you should do that too.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I bit my lip as I looked away. “Mallory never texted me.”

“Because stupid Ben destroyed her phone one night. He thought they could find her from its gps. You didn’t hear him at the end, before he got all happy. He was sounding crazy. He thought there were men watching them. He thought someone was listening in on the landline and they could get into his computers. He was scared to leave the apartment. I mean, really, he took a butcher knife with him when we ordered pizza. I’m surprised the kid didn’t drop a deuce on his doorstep.”

I looked down. I couldn’t stop myself. There were men watching them. Carter had sent them. I didn’t know about the rest, but Ben wasn’t as crazy as she thought. As I slid out of the booth, I mustered up a smile. “On that sanitary note, I think I’m going to head home.”

“Tomorrow?”

I stopped, caught by the earnest hope on her face, and nodded. “Yeah. You know, let’s do something fun. Maybe a night at Octave?”

Her eyes lit up. “Serious?”

“Serious. We’ll have our own box too.”

“Is your man going to be there?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. He tries to come if he’s not busy.”

“So you’re saying it could be just the two of us, in our own private box?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Nope. Just means I can get wasted and not worry about looking like a fool.”

When his phone rang, Carter inwardly sighed. It wasn’t the ring he wanted to hear. He picked up his phone, “Gene?”

“You have a problem.”

He didn’t blink or react. It was how he assumed the conversation would start. “With what?”

“Our cops called. All of them said the same thing, your woman’s roommate was found an hour ago.”

He held back his grimace. He already knew it wasn’t good news. “She’s dead.”

“Yep, beaten and strangled. Cops think the boyfriend did it, that one you said would be a problem.”

“They know why?” Emma would want to know. She’d want to understand and then she’d blame herself.

“A butcher knife was taken to her stomach. They think she was pregnant and the prick didn’t like who the father was.”

Dunvan.

Carter sighed. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

“The boyfriend’s still missing. Cops are canvassing the neighborhood for him, but right now they only think he was a crackhead. You know what’ll happen if he’s taken into custody.”

“Crackhead?” But Carter knew that’s what Franco had done. Get them hooked and they belong to you forever.

“Yeah,” the older man sounded wary. “They were using an abandoned apartment in a warehouse. It looked like a usual crackhead’s place. You know what’s all there.”