Cruel Kisses (It's Just High School #2) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,49
hits after hits with each word my mother utters.
Fuck.
When she’s on screen, she’s all I see. Soon after that, Mia walks over to Nancy’s room, but she hesitates to open the door and when she does, she freezes, standing so still in the doorway with her eyes wide.
“Shit, y’all should’ve put audio with this shit,” Cole whistles. “Oh, to be a fly on that wall.”
Some areas of the house have audio, not this part. I have no idea what happens next because the cameras in Nancy’s room were disabled.
“Fuck.”
Dad must have done that. There used to be cameras in there, I think. I fast forward the footage, looking to see when Mia came out of the room, but as I do, I see the other log in on the system and my blood runs cold.
Someone else has had access to this footage already.
“Son of a bitch,” I grit out, wanting so bad to throw my damn phone away when I re-read his name, thinking I read it wrong due to my heavy insomnia.
“What?”
“Someone else was in the system, checking the footage,” I grumble. Cole looks at me then he cracks a wide smile that pisses me off.
“Of course, he did!” Cole laughs. “Shit, told you that kid is smarter than you give him credit for.”
Fucking shit.
“When did he log in?”
“Two days ago.”
“Well shit, Lilo’s been Lilo for real! That’s my boy! You’re getting slow in your old age.”
The fact that I can’t get track his phone, he’s been covering his tracks because he’s been on a solo mission for the past four days—and making headway as it seems. That clever bastard.
“Well, at least that covers it,” Cole mutters, now relaxed. “He’s obviously two steps ahead of us in finding Mia. Shit, they might be together right now.”
I don’t like the way those words feel or the images they conjure up in my head. There’s chemistry between my brother and Mia. I knew it and I hated it! Because when it really came down to it, I knew what would happen would be irreversible.
“No, he isn’t. If he found Mia already, we’d know. He hasn’t found her.”
Liam can track the obvious route, but I’m stuck on what Cole just said about Mia not setting the damn house on fire.
Mia was the type of girl who lashed out only when it was necessary. Others could refer to her as a bully, an Ice Queen, but I knew she never felt any kind of satisfaction or joy in giving someone a bloody read, embarrassing the hell out of them. She wasn’t wired that way.
She cared. She felt and she was so fucking full of emotion that she chooses to shut herself down just so she doesn’t have to feel any of them.
Which is why she tried to drown herself when Courtney revealed the truth about her mother. Or when she wouldn’t let go of the glass that was slicing through her palm.
Mia was complex but she was mine.
So, what did she do after passing out? Who got in her ear before I saw her out on the beach?
“What are you looking for?” Cole questions.
“Something.” I hope I’m wrong.
I fast forward the footage until I see nurses and doctors running into the room Nancy had been laid up in. Then I press play and watch the moment Mia passes out, right by the door, her beautiful face looking distraught.
A pair of paramedics rush to her and put her on a stretcher and take her out of the room. But instead of taking her out to the ambulance, they follow Nicky to the east wing of the house.
“Nicky,” I mutter, seeing what Liam must have seen when he saw this footage, because that’s where his log ended. He didn’t go further than that.
“What?”
“The sunroom,” I mutter and Cole comes to stand beside me, both of us peering down at the iPhone screen.
Nicky was with Mia after she passed out.
I access the cameras at the east wing of the house and watch as the paramedics rush back—sans Mia or Nicky—and my suspicions are confirmed. I fast forward the footage and watch as Nathan stalks down the hallway like he knows where he’s going and reaches the door where Mia and Nicky entered, but haven’t come out of.
“Why is Nathan Montague walking through your house like he knows the place?”
Because he does…
Why did dad warn me about this man? What’s his deal besides hurting Mia the way he did? I think it’s more than just affairs and