Sunken Graves, Alan Lee [all ebook reader .txt] 📗

hundredth time, Jennings thought, This is a bad idea.

He was ready to call the sting off when Hathaway texted the group.

>> This is going to work, guys! I’m excited to save the lives and souls of his future victims.

She then texted him personally.

>> Thank you, Daniel. We can only do this because of you.

Jennings lowered his head to the steering wheel, parked at the gas station next to Bloom, and he shook.

31

What to wear, that was an issue.

Hathaway wanted Lynch eager from the jump. She wanted him to have that shock of seeing too much of her body, wanted his blood pumping, ready to give her anything. But she couldn’t be obvious or he’d sense the con. She had to look accidentally or naturally like she was…what words had he used…like she was horny. Prurient.

Hathaway put her hair up, a bun that looked casual but wasn’t. She chose tight black leggings and heels. A green button-down shirt. She examined herself in front of the mirror with a cold eye. The shirt reached the leggings but Lynch could look at her ass and her legs all he wanted. She undid a frightening amount of buttons. She wanted her breasts in his face but it couldn’t look like that was her goal.

She wished she was dressing for Daniel.

She was, in a lot of ways.

Byron was in the basement practicing his guitar for the first time in weeks. She used to love the sound of his strings. Now she wanted to break them. She walked back and forth through the house. Hoping her fiancé would hear her heels on the wooden floor and be intrigued. Would come tell her she looked beautiful. Would ask her what on earth she was doing. Would care.

He didn’t. He turned up the volume on his guitar amp and sang louder.

Jennings felt like he was sinking into Afghan sand. He sat in his truck, parked on an empty driveway a block removed, watching Lynch’s Jaguar ease to a stop in front of Daisy’s house.

She emerged and paused under the street lamp, like she had a halo. From four houses away, her outfit struck him and his chest tightened.

Lynch would be thinking risqué thoughts.

“He’s here,” said Jennings.

The two men listening on the conference call remained quiet.

Lynch got out from the car. What a car. He looked sharp in a blue sports jacket. Jennings couldn’t be positive at this distance, but Lynch might’ve undergone a haircut and shave. Satan looking dapper for his date.

She looked tiny next to him.

Lynch opened the passenger door for her. Closed it and returned to the driver seat.

“They’re rolling. So far so good.”

The Jaguar pulled away and Jennings’ eyes shifted down to the phone’s map, watching Hathaway’s dot leave him. He imagined echoes of his friends dying.

Lynch had pressed against Hathaway when he opened her car door, but was otherwise remarkably civil on the drive. Thanking her for the company and asking about her weekend. Hathaway, accustomed to Byron talking about video games and driving his old Jeep, found the Jaguar and pleasant conversation at odds with her expectations.

Lynch had hungry eyes. Couldn’t help himself and his pulse raced visibly in his neck.

He parked on Wasena Avenue and said, “You look so lovely, Ms. Hathaway, that I’m surprised your fiancé didn’t keep you to himself tonight. If you belonged to me, I would have eaten you up.”

Fiancé. He remembered the ring she used to wear.

“When we’re not at school, Mr. Lynch, you may call me Daisy.”

“You can call me Peter no matter where we are, Daisy. But I like how Mr. Lynch sounds on your lips.”

They strolled side by side to Bloom and she scanned the far sidewalk. Didn’t see Lewis. He was there, she knew. Rightfully hiding until they were inside. But she yearned for a friendly face.

Bloom was a small one-room restaurant, designed to look industrial and modern. White and spare, and Hathaway made the unfortunate comparison to an operating room.

The hostess whisked them to the reserved table in the corner. Perfect for Lynch’s purposes. And perfect for hers.

Lewis, however, would only have a narrow angle to see them from the street.

Their waitress arrived and poured each a glass of water from her carafe. Before Hathaway could order, Lynch laid his hand on hers to still her. Told the woman, “You keep Peter Michael chardonnay on hand. We’ll take a bottle.”

The black hair on Lynch’s wrist and knuckles brushed and repulsed her, and she drew her hand away under the pretense of checking her phone.

The device was recording.

She set it on the table and casually draped her napkin over the screen.

Lynch said, “The chef here is excellent. He was hired from a restaurant in New York.”

“I’ve been here once only for a cocktail.”

“Once you taste the best, Daisy, you’ll never go back.” He flashed the large teeth.

“The wine, you mean.”

“Among other things.”

“Is the bottle expensive?”

“For some. But what’s a hundred dollars on a night like tonight, Daisy.”

“The wine might be lost on me. I don’t drink often and when I do the bottle costs nine dollars.”

“When you’re with me, we’ll have the best. Wine’s a natural lubricant.”

“Oh?”

“To ease the date along.”

She forced eye contact and a smile. “Attorneys drink better than teachers, I suppose. Comes with the salary?”

“Your little friend Daniel Jennings guzzles Coors Lite, without question. Or maybe his own piss.”

“Did you hear his truck was vandalized?”

Lynch did not answer immediately.

In the cold, Craig Lewis walked to the intersection of Main Street and Winona. Strolled down the sidewalk. To see Hathaway’s corner table he was forced to move closer than he wished.

He wore a Bluetooth earpiece under his toboggan and when he spoke his breath condensed into fog.

“They’re sitting at a side table. I can see them. But only just.”

“How’s she look?” The voice belonged to Jennings. He sounded angry.

“Stunning. She’s earning glances from the surrounding patrons. Even an old gay man like me can appreciate her, Mr. Jennings.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“She looks