Wrong Place, Right Time - Elle Casey Page 0,28

it open, all the while knowing what I’m going to find inside: nothing.

I close my eyes and try to retrace in my mind the steps I took after I left the panic room. Did I take my laptop with me? I remember grabbing my purse, but I don’t remember taking the computer. And I don’t remember putting it in my car, and I don’t remember setting it down here inside the house anywhere. Dammit, dammit, double dammit!

Just in case my rearview memory is wrong, I grab my keys and run outside. The neighbors have seen me looking pretty rough over the past year, so I’m not worried about any of them viewing my latest zombie chic look. Let ’em judge.

I press my face against the driver’s window and scan the inside of my car. All I see is the random garbage that always floats around the vehicle that acts as a taxi for three little kids.

I open the rear door anyway, trying not to let the dread overtake me, and climb into the backseat. Looking around, I mumble angrily to myself. “Come on, you bastard. Be in here. Be in here!” Crap is flying everywhere as I toss the entire backseat area. I’ve almost managed to convince myself that my laptop is here, buried under something. It has to be.

I find three random shoes that don’t match, two fast-food meal boxes with empty wrappers inside, about a hundred petrified French fries scattered all over, and a rotten apple core shoved in the crack between two seats. I’m so disgusted with my life, I can’t even comprehend it right now. How did I get to this place? Fall so far? I’m a crazy zombie wading through the remnants of at least five horrible meal choices for children who deserve much better than the mess I’ve become.

I leave the car, slamming the door in my anger, and march back up the front steps. I cannot believe that I forgot my computer at the warehouse. My computer is my life! I left there in such a huff—how am I going to go back and be cool about retrieving it? They’re going to think I left it there on purpose. They’re going to think I’m coming back to beg for that freelance job. Just the very idea makes me so angry I could spit. So I do, right there on my bushes. Twice.

Once inside the house, I take several long, deep breaths in an effort to calm myself. I’m obviously overreacting as a result of being in not-really danger today. Being trapped in a panic room has to leave scars, even though there was nothing technically wrong, right? But I can move past it. Nothing happened. I’m safe. Hell, it was probably that idiot driving the forklift who banged into their door, and they’re all so paranoid over there, they think it was some gangster coming to mow them down with an AK-47.

Whatever. I’m not going back there. May has to bring me my computer. And she’s going to have to bring it right now, because I need it. Maybe I’m going to join a dating site. Maybe I’m going to find some freelance work. Whatever. I can’t do any of it without the computer. And it’s her fault I left it there, so she has to fix this.

I dig around in my purse until I find my phone. There are three messages from May, all of them showing concern and asking me how I’m doing.

My fingers blaze out a response.

Me: I’m fine. Forgot my computer at the warehouse. Please bring it to me right away. It’s in the panic room.

I grind my teeth as I stare at the phone and wait for a response. The seconds tick by. I start tapping my toe with impatience. She was in an all-fired hurry to reach me just five minutes ago, waking me up out of a sound sleep on my weekend off, and now she’s disappeared. Perfect. So, so perfect for my life right now.

May: Okay. No prob. B there soon.

My jaw goes off-kilter as I read the message several times. I’m suspicious. My sister is never this short and sweet about anything. I can’t decide if I’m just being paranoid, if this is some kind of trick, or if Dev was completely right about my sister and he actually does know her better than I do.

Just the thought of that makes me want to throw my phone across the room, but I don’t have