“You’re gripping that steering wheel like you’re trying to choke the life out of it,” Harley chuckled.
Stacy looked over at her friend. “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on between you and this King guy. What I am sure of is that we’ve been friends since you started working at the hospital and I know you pretty well, but I don’t know Hospital Hotty. That guy might look like the typical all-American surfer dude, but my gut’s telling me there’s more to him – and that you need to be careful, my friend.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. This is not good. Harley had no intention of telling her friend that Hospital Hotty was actually Hospital Hitman. She was going to have to be careful if she was going to keep Stacy from becoming involved in something she wanted no part of. This was a curveball of epic proportions. She hadn’t expected Stacy to pick up on anything. So she did the only thing that would work at the moment: she played dumb.
“What are you talking about, Stacy?”
Stacy shook her head again. “I don’t know. I just feel like there’s more to the guy.”
“Like what? He works on an exotic animal refuge, for God’s sake. There can’t be some hidden agenda to that.”
“Who for?”
“Excuse me?” Harley answered, keeping her face carefully blank. It was nothing more than an effort to gain a couple of precious seconds to think up an answer that would appease her overly curious friend. We all know what curiosity did to the cat...
“Who. Does. He. Work. For?”
“He works for himself,” she said smoothly. I am so going to Hell…
“So he owns the wildlife refuge?”
“Yes.” Lie number two. Now I’m a liar and an accomplice to a murder. “What are you thinking? Just come out with it.”
“He’s not married? He doesn’t have another woman? No…that can’t be right. I just think it’s stalkerish for him to get into your house, and with no key, mind you.” She took her eyes off the road for a second to glance at Harley. “And then to get your clothes and personal items to take to his house, like he’s going to make you stay with him? I think it’s just weird. He could be a fucking murderer or a kidnapper. What if he’s a mental case?”
“Mental case,” Harley said as she made air quotes with her fingers, “is a relative term. We’re all mental cases in our own way.” It was a brazen attempt to deflect and she hoped like hell it was working. “And by the way…now you sound like the one who’s been reading too many crime novels.”
“It’s weird!”
Harley held her hands up in mock surrender. “Okay. Okay. It is a bit stalkerish but I think it’s kind of sexy, a little endearing, even.”
“You’re not scared of him?”
“No!” Another lie. Liar, liar pants on fire. Hers should be sending up smoke signals right about now.
“Okay, but I’m telling you, I’m going to check this guy out. I can be a fucking detective when I want to be.”
Maybe acting offended would get Stacy off Hospital Hotty’s scent. Stacy was like a dog with a bone when she got something in her head, but this time it could get her killed. Harley had to stop her. “Look,” Harley said impatiently, “I understand you care about me but you’re beginning to piss me off. You’re the one who was so adamant about me dating—finding myself a man. And now this? I find somebody and he’s not good enough for you!?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, but I still think it’s weird that he broke into your house.”
“There was an issue at a bar I had told him about. Some guy had tried to follow me home a while back and I told him about it. I guess it freaked him out.” Liar, liar, pants on fire; that’s lie number four. Harley wished her conscience would shut the fuck up.
“Oh, my gosh! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to worry you.” That’s number five. She was going to have to have a talk with her conscience when she got home. This whole ‘for the greater good’ approach was a bitch.
“Okay. Well, now I feel better.”
Harley was relieved to see her friend’s fingers lose the death grip on the steering wheel. It would survive the day’s drama. The question was, would Harley? Or worse yet, would the curious cat…?