“Oh, come on. She said she makes candles for all the sabbats too.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
His chuckle was low and sexy, and he lifted up to kiss me, so all the rest of it hardly mattered. I was going to live with Jeremiah. That was all I cared about.
On our way out to eat, I realized I didn’t have anything but a suit jacket to wear over my polo, so Jeremiah rifled through his duffel and pulled out his leather racing jacket for me. It was nice to wear something of his. We were almost to the door when I put my hands in the pockets and felt something in the right one. I pulled it out and realized it was a mahjong tile, the eight of bamboo.
“Oh man, do you know how to play?” I asked excitedly. “I love mahjong.”
He squinted at me, his hand on the doorknob. “I don’t know what this is.”
“It’s a tile, and you—wait.” The longer I held it, the more I realized it felt weird, and as I inspected it a little closer, I saw a seam between what would look like the letters M and W to anyone who didn’t play, but it was, of course, eight sticks of bamboo. When I separated the seam, I immediately understood I wasn’t holding a mahjong tile at all. It was a flash drive.
“Holy shit, Cam,” he gasped, staring at me. “I think you just found what the guys who destroyed Shawn’s apartment were looking for.”
“No,” I countered, suddenly terrified and unable to move.
“Uh, I’m gonna say fuck yeah, you did.” He looked as freaked out as I felt.
“You had no idea this was in here?”
“No, absolutely not…but I loaned this jacket to Shawn one day in class because he said he was cold. He didn’t get it back to me until we saw each other again later in the week, and I never thought to check the pockets. I mean, how often do you check your coat pockets?”
“All the time!” I railed at him. “Are you kidding?”
“Really? Man, I find money in the pockets of my winter coats every year, and it’s awesome, like a little surprise that never gets old, but it’s once a year.”
I shook my head at him.
“Just judge me later, all right? Order something from Grubhub while I call Detective Aguilar.”
Instead of doing that, I walked over to my laptop and stuck the flash drive in the USB port.
“What’re you doing?”
“I’m going to make sure we have a copy of whatever’s on this drive. I don’t trust anybody, not where you’re concerned, so we’re going to make sure we have insurance.”
“Yeah, but what if it’s a video of somebody being killed or something?”
“Like a hit?”
“Like a murder.”
“And it was somehow caught on camera?”
“Have you ever even seen the internet, Cameron? Just…never mind. Oh my God, maybe it’s a snuff film.”
I scowled at him. “You do realize that snuff films are an urban legend.”
“Are they, though?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, but are they?”
“Yes,” I insisted. “And no matter how many times you say but are they? that isn’t going to change.”
“Are you positive?” He drawled out the words again.
“Yes,” I repeated. “And this is all I’m doing right now, so use my phone, order food, and then call the police, because I’m not moving.”
He groaned like I was ridiculous, but he took my phone I absently held out to him, not making eye contact, focused solely on opening the file saved on the drive.
It was a video, but nothing even remotely interesting. There was a group of men playing poker, the TV on in the background and a weatherman talking about how hot it was going to be the first weekend in October.
“This is it?” Jeremiah asked as he walked up behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Did you order food?” I asked, not having heard anything he was doing, completely absorbed with the lack of anything happening on the video.
“Yes, but it’s gonna be awhile, and I called Detective Aguilar.”
“Oh good, perfect,” I praised as he sat down beside me, close, elbow on the table.
We were both quiet for several minutes.
“Are you kidding? This is the smoking gun?”
“I guess.”
Watching other people gamble had never been something I enjoyed. My father and brother used to always stop flipping channels when they saw a professional poker tournament, and I never understood the appeal.
“All right. So, as far as I can tell, it’s nothing even remotely interesting.”