The Perfect Cover (The Perfect Stranger #2) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,28

and now he’s holding one of the most precious things I own.

“You can’t write this,” Mac says.

“You don’t even know what it says, you didn’t even read it.”

“I can read more if you want,” he offers.

“Fuck you,” I say, gritting my teeth.

“You can’t write this. You’re supposed to be a hostage. If anyone finds this, then they’ll never believe you.”

“I know,” I mumble softly.

“Since we have no idea if we will be caught or when, I’m going to do something to protect you against yourself.” He grabs the pages and violently rips them out.

I gasp, unable to believe my eyes.

Is this really happening?

“What are you doing?”

He takes out a lighter and starts a flame.

I reach over to stop him.

He jumps away from me and the flame goes out.

“You know I have to do this, Isabelle.”

“No, you don’t. That’s mine.”

“Let me ask you a question,” he says seriously, looking deep into my eyes. “When the front desk clerks ask you who you’re traveling with, you give them fake names. You protect Tyler’s identity. You protect mine.”

“Is that a question?” I ask after a moment, crossing my arms across my chest.

“You do that to protect us,” he says without looking away from me.

His gaze is disarming.

There’s an intensity there that I haven’t seen before.

He was always so casual and easy-going, but I had no idea that he had this other side to him.

“You got mad at us for going out to the diner and you got upset when I went out to the bar. I know that you acted that way because you care. You don’t want us to get caught. Well, I’m doing this for you, too.”

He flips the top and lights the corner of the pages in his hands.

“I can’t have this confession out here. If we get caught, they’ll probably kill us. Shoot us point blank. With you, they’ll have questions. They won’t want to believe that you have been held captive this whole time. You’ll need to prove it to them that you were. Things like this, mistakes like these,” Mac says, holding up the burning papers to my face, “they’re going to put you away for life.”

I watch the pages burn knowing that he’s right.

Besides, why does it matter? I have written the words down. The venom has been expelled out of me.

The mere act of writing the truth made everything better.

We walk back to the motel and just when I step on the first stair, Mac whispers, “So, who do you owe the debt to?”

My heart sinks.

It drops into the lower part of my stomach and then even further down my body.

My blood runs cold and I glance over at him.

He had skimmed the pages, but I had no idea that he had read that page.

I had only written about the debt a little bit, briefly touching on it, but it must’ve been enough.

“It’s your mother’s debt, right?” he asks. “You said that she had disappeared.”

I shake my head and say, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about a lot of things,” Mac says, “but it doesn’t change the fact that they get talked about when necessary.”

“That’s my problem. It doesn’t concern you.”

“No, I beg to differ. We’re running for our lives. Our faces are plastered all over primetime. Everyone is looking for us. If you owe a debt to someone, we need to know about it. At least I do.”

I shake my head and mock, “I bet you wish you hadn’t burned all those pages now, don’t you?”

17

Tyler

When we fight...

Mac says that he’s going out for a smoke, but he doesn’t stay on the landing or out front. Instead, he disappears somewhere out back, following a trail.

I want to follow him, but I don’t want to pry. Besides, the beers are hitting me pretty well and I’m not sure any comments that I’m going to make will do anyone any good.

I take a few deep breaths, lean back against the limpest pillow I’ve ever had, and stare at the television as I flip through the channels.

I don’t know how much time passes or why they both come in through the door at the same time.

I’m drunk but not enough to not sense the tension between them.

Mac covers it with a joke and Isabelle jumps in front of her computer screen. The fact that we’re staying in less than 100 square feet is not making this trip any easier.

“Listen, I’m going to head out,” Mac says, grabbing his wallet.

It’s filled with