Mia couldn’t tell if her heart fluttered or stopped altogether. She felt more alarmed than when they’d been crashing or riding the crest of a monster wave. And how bonkers was that? “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.
Cami’s eyebrows drew together. “Aren’t you two together?”
“No,” she blurted, completely appalled she’d given the lawyer that impression.
No wonder Romeo was wearing that look when he lifted me off his lap. My behavior was even more blatant than I thought!
“Romeo and I are just friends,” she assured the lawyer, wondering how many times in a twenty-four-hour period she’d be forced to repeat that phrase. “And colleagues. And fans of P.J. Warren’s Night Angels series. But that’s all.”
It was pretty thin as far as explanations went, but it was the best she could come up with on the fly.
“Huh.” Cami blinked. “Guess I read the room wrong. Sorry about that.”
“No worries.” Mia tried to sound unbothered.
She turned to Romeo to make light of things. But for the life of her, she forgot what she wanted to say the instant her eyes clashed with his.
She couldn’t read his expression, but she would swear the air around them vibrated.
Doc, god love him, saved her from further humiliation by asking Cami, “Tell me the truth, Counselor. And don’t give me any of that not mixing business with pleasure nonsense. Is the reason you won’t sleep with me now that we’re sober because you find my keen intellect and masculine prowess intimidating?”
“Not mixing business with pleasure isn’t nonsense.” Cami flattened her mouth at him. “But on top of that, I won’t sleep with you now because I know you’re arrogant and sarcastic and—”
“Yes?” Doc interrupted. “When do we get to the bad stuff?”
Cami turned an exasperated expression on Romeo while pointing toward Doc. “What is with this guy?”
“How much time do you have?” Romeo made a face. “Because that would require a very, very long answer.”
“Hey!” Doc objected. “Whatever happened to bros before—”
“Don’t say it!” Cami pinned Doc with a killing look. “I don’t care if you have a head injury. I swear on all that’s holy, if you say it, I’m going to slap you so hard, you won’t land until next week.”
“Sheesh.” Doc feigned affront. “I was going to say bros before broads. But maybe you prefer dicks before chicks? Pals before gals? I didn’t realize you were so sensitive.”
“Nice save,” Cami scoffed. “And just so you know, the only thing I’m sensitive to is the fact that you’re—”
Again, Mia stopped listening and tentatively turned to Romeo.
He rolled his eyes at Doc and Cami, as if to say, “Can you believe those two?” Aloud he said, “We’re almost there.” He motioned with his chin over his shoulder.
She let her eyes slide past him to the gleaming stretch of white sand and the long line of palm trees swaying in the wind. It wasn’t much as far as a home away from home went, but it was so much better than drifting with the current in a life raft the size of a sectional sofa.
When she returned her gaze to his face, he gave her another friendly wink, and no matter how hard she looked—and she looked hard—she couldn’t see any of the wary trepidation that’d been in his eyes earlier.
It worked, she told herself. He believed what I said to Cami. I didn’t ruin everything after all.
She grabbed hold of that certainty and clung to it with the tenacity of a lamprey on a sturgeon.
Chapter 8
12:49 PM...
“Fuckin’-A, man,” Carter snarled, powering the speedboat to a stop and letting the big engines idle for a moment before killing them. “Where the hell is it?”
As quick as the speedboat was, the amphibious aircraft had been quicker.
After the explosives Kenny had wired to the plane only shredded the tail section instead of igniting the fuel tanks and blowing the whole thing from the sky, they’d lost sight of the wounded aircraft when it disappeared over the horizon. The only thing they’d had to follow was the smoke trail. But that had long since disappeared, leaving nothing to look at but undulating ocean waves as far as the eye could see.
“Ya think they didn’t crash after all? Think maybe they were able to make it back to Key West?” Robby braced his legs wide on the deck of the speedboat as he lifted a set of high-powered binoculars to his eyes, scanning their surroundings.
The heat of the midday sun was intense as it reflected off the water. All the same, a chill stole up Carter’s spine. If Robby was right, if Mia and company had made it back to Key West, then they’d know someone had tried to end them.
I mean, I’m no forensics expert, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to tell the plane’s tail section was obliterated by an explosive.
Which, inevitably, meant there would be questions. Question would lead to the authorities being notified. The authorities being notified would lead to an investigation.
Shit!
The whole point of this plan was so that everyone would think the plane had fallen victim to an unexplained crash. That it’d simply disappeared over the ocean like so many small aircraft did. That all onboard had been lost, never to be seen again.
Carter had spent weeks working out the logistics with Robby and Kenny. The three of them had been best friends since the sixth grade. As such, they’d been through a lot of firsts together. First time getting drunk, first time getting high, first time getting laid—Jessica Jones had let them take turns for twenty bucks a pop. It’d just made sense that when Carter needed to kill someone for the first time, he’d gone to Kenny and Robby for help.
Kenny had jumped at the idea. Thanks to the summers he’d spent running around in the woods with his uncle Doyle and his uncle Doyle’s militia buddies, Kenny had been preparing for something like this his whole life.
Robby? He’d taken some convincing. Of course, it had helped that there was a payday involved, because Robby had a bit of a gambling problem, and he owed a pretty penny to a loan shark in Kenwood.
Funny how quickly a man puts aside his morals when he’s being threatened with a pair of broken kneecaps.
In the end, they’d all been onboard and, just like always, when the three of them put their heads together, good things happened. Case in point: The Plan.