Chapter Eleven

Carson

 

I was getting dressed to go to the clubhouse when my phone rang. Shit, I thought, narrowing my eyes. It was the store number at Tinder’s. What do they want?

 

“Yo,” I said, answering my phone. “What’s up?”

 

It wasn’t my manager, but Eddie, the guy who filled in for me sometimes. Lately, they’d hired him as a temp. Sometimes on busy days, we even worked together. “Yo, man,” he said after introducing himself. “So you wanted some intel on that redhead?”

 

My stomach sunk. As much as I’d been thinking Caroline was involved in something wrong, I didn’t want to be right. I was hoping that she’d wise up and never cross the threshold of Tinder’s again. But apparently I was wrong. Dread filled my stomach and I started to really wonder what was going on.

 

“The redhead?” I repeated dumbly. “What happened?”

 

Eddie laughed. “Nothing, man,” he said. “She just came in a little before noon. Walked around for a while, looked at a necklace.”

 

My heart started to thud in my chest like a caged animal. “Look at it?” I asked. “Like, did she take it out of the case and try it on?”

 

“No, man, she just glanced. She left a little after noon. Got into some guy’s car in the parking lot. I don’t know if she left with him or what.”

 

“Shit,” I muttered.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Nothing,” I lied. “I gotta go. Thanks for the call, man. I owe you one.”

 

We hung up, and I jammed my phone and my wallet in my pocket as I headed out to my bike. I had no idea what was going on, but I was about to find out. The whole drive over to Caroline’s, I kept thinking of what she could possibly have done to want to do this. She seemed like such a chill girl. Well, not chill exactly. I shuddered as I remembered how hot and responsive her curvy body had been. She had climbed me like a tree.

 

“Caroline!” I yelled as I pounded on her front door. “You better let me in right now! Or you’re gonna regret it!”

 

I heard small footsteps on the other side of the door. When it opened only a crack, I braced myself. “I can’t let you in,” she said in a small voice. “Go away, Carson. Go away and forget you ever met me.”

 

I pushed on the door but it caught on the chain. Wedging my toe in at the bottom, I glared into her snapping green eyes. “Let me in,” I growled. “Or I’m going to break your door.”

 

Fear flashed over her face, and she shut it momentarily before opening it wider than before. Sighing, I pushed past her and sat down on her couch. Caroline stayed where she was, flashing me a guilty look.

 

“Sit down,” I commanded, pointing to the couch next to me. “We need to talk.”

 

Caroline shook her head. “No, we don’t,” she said. Her voice was quaking and I saw a blush rising up her neck and over her cheeks. “We don’t have anything to say to each other.”

 

“Caroline, come on,” I told her. “I know you’re up to no good. That security guard at Tinder’s called me and told me that you went back in there!”

 

She blushed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know I shouldn’t have done that.”

 

I glared at her. “You need to tell me what the fuck is going on, Caroline,” I hissed. “I’m going to make your life hell if you don’t.”

 

Caroline glanced at me. There were tears in her eyes. Suddenly, I felt myself softening towards her. She was obviously afraid of me, but more afraid of something else.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

 

“It’s okay,” I said, exhaling loudly. “I want to help you, okay? I know you must be in some kind of trouble. I can tell that you’re afraid of something, Caroline.” She bit her lip. I continued, “Wouldn’t it be better to tell me so that we can start to work through this together? Wouldn’t that be preferable to possibly committing a felony?”

 

Caroline nodded.

 

“So tell me,” I pleaded. “If you tell me now, I might be able to do something. But if you wait, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to step in. You got that?”

 

She nodded, looking closer to tears than ever before. “You promise that you’ll try to help me?”

 

I nodded. “I swear,” I told her. “No lie.”

 

Caroline took a deep breath. She folded her hands in her lap and I had to look away so I wouldn’t see how badly she was shaking. “Well, it started last Friday,” she said, biting her lip and looking into my eyes. “I was laid off.”

 

I nodded. “I know. Remember? I asked around the at the bar.”

 

She blushed. “I remember,” she said, looking away. “Unfortunately.”

 

“What happened next?”

 

Caroline swallowed hard. “I got home and there was an eviction notice on my front door,” she said quietly. I watched as a tear slipped from one of her eyes and trailed down her cheek. “Saying that if I don’t have the money by Wednesday, they’ll evict me.”

 

I stared at her. Under my gaze, I saw her shiver. “That’s tomorrow,” I said. “What are you going to do?”

 

Caroline looked away. “This is the part you don’t want to hear,” she said carefully. “Well, Saturday morning, I went to the bar and tried to beg Eddie for my job back.” As she spoke, a bright red flush worked its way over her cheeks. “It didn’t work, obviously,” she said.

 

I could tell that verbalizing all of this was killing her. Reaching over, I took one of her small, soft hands in my own. Caroline looked up at me in surprise. Her green eyes were burning bright with tears and emotion. Keeping her gaze locked, I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb.

 

“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’ve gone this far.”

 

Caroline flicked her gaze to the floor, then back to my eyes. “I know,” she said softly. “And, Carson, I’m really sorry. I never wanted you to know any of this.”

 

I shook my head. “It’s fine,” I told her. I was getting anxious listening to her draw it out for as long as she could. “Just tell me.”

 

“So, Eddie obviously said no,” Caroline said. She blew out a gust of air, sending her red strands flying into the air. “And then I ran into Lucas on the way out. He told me that he had a job for me. He said it was nothing sexual or nothing weird, and told me to meet him Monday morning in the park to talk.”

 

My heart sunk. I didn’t like where this was going. Not at all. That scumbag Lucas was obviously up to no good, I didn’t want him to drag her into whatever schemes he had going on. While he obviously wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, he didn’t seem stupid. I bet he’d come up with something really diabolical. “What next?”

 

Caroline eyed me. “I spent the whole weekend trying to find another job,” she told me. “I looked everywhere. I even thought about doing some bad stuff,” she added, blushing. Admittedly when she said the last two words, I pictured her naked in my mind. Delicious Caroline, trying to make money. Stop, I thought. She doesn’t need this right now.

 

“Did you find anything?”

 

Caroline shook her head tersely. “No, I didn’t. So I met Lucas on Monday at the park. He didn’t exact tell me what he was planning, but he told me what he needed me to do. He wanted me to go to Tinder’s and tell him where certain things were in the store. And when the employees left and went to lunch. You know. Scope it out.”

 

I raked a hand through my hair and tried to take a deep breath, but anger was pulsing through me. I couldn’t believe that she’d kept it from me this long. “Jesus, Caroline!” I cried out. “Don’t you have any friends, or any family that could help you out? Isn’t there anyone?”

 

Caroline bit her lip. Tears spilled over the edges of her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t. And I didn’t want to help him, Carson. But then he pulled out this envelope…and I knew I had to.”

 

My stomach turned to ice. “What was inside?”

 

Caroline looked away. “Some pictures,” she said softly, wiping at her eyes. The tears kept coming until she was sobbing. I pushed my anger aside and took her in my arms. In my arms, Caroline felt slight and delicate. “Some pictures I had taken when I was young and stupid for money,” she said. “And he promised me that he’d put them all up online and sell them and they’d be everywhere if I didn’t help him, Carson! He threatened me!”

 

“I know, I know,” I said mindlessly as I stroked her hair. “It’s okay. It’ll be alright.”

 

In my arms, she cried and cried. “I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “It feels like nothing is gonna be okay. I can’t go to jail, Carson! I can’t be homeless! I don’t know what I’m doing!” She snuffled and pulled her face back from my shirt, which was already damp with her tears. After she’d been crying, her green eyes looked even brighter than usual. Her eyelids were a delicate pink, and I wanted to run my hand over her face. She looked so beautiful and vulnerable that I couldn’t stand it.

 

“I’m so scared,” she whispered, burying her face in my chest. “I’m so terrified, Carson.”

 

“I know,” I told her, stroking her back. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”