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“You better.”

Chapter 11

Amelia

Notaminutelaterthe door opens. Fear takes over, and I hit the floor behind the bed. Between my options of fight or flight, apparently I’m a hider.

“Millie?”

Maddie. “Thank goodness.” I pop up and rush over to her. “Where have you been?”

“Me?" She grabs me in a hug then pulls back to look at me, checking me from top to bottom. "I’ve been looking for you! You ran off the stage and never came back. I texted you a million times before I realized I had your purse. Here’s this, by the way.” She holds out the purse and I take it, tossing it onto the bed. “And then Caleb just called me and told me to get you out of town ASAP. Want to explain what’s happening?”

“Yes.” I pull my luggage onto the bed next to my bag and stuff my belongings back inside. “As soon as I understand it myself.”

“What do you mean?” Maddie picks up two things, puts them in her neatly packed bag, and is apparently ready to go.

“Caleb is here andundercoverwith some bad people.” I rush to the bathroom and gather the fifty makeup products strewn about. I have to make two trips just to get them all in my bag.

“Are you serious? This is so dangerous. We can’t be here. That’s not why we came, is it?” She raises a brow at me.

“Of course not.”

“Then how did you know?”

“He found me,” I say, still stuffing the makeup back into the bag.

“How?”

“Well, when I ran from the bar, I was chasing his dad,” I say, slipping out of my dress and dropping it to the floor as I pull a t-shirt over my head.

“You found his dad?”

“Yes, terrible person, by the way. He was breaking into a storage unit.” The dress gets tangled around my ankles and I trip.

“Millie!” Maddie chides.

“I know, I know, clothes don’t belong on the floor.” I’m already scooping up my dress.

“So you’re saying you followed Thane to a storage place where he then committed a crime? Millie, that’s so bad. What if you got caught on camera and they think you’re an accomplice?”

“I stayed far enough away.” I hope. I drop the dress on the bed and pull out shorts from my luggage. “So now Caleb thinks his dad stole the thing he needs to deliver to the bad guys, even though it’s super dangerous.”

I consider leaving my dress here because the stain will probably never come out, but the memories are worth saving. I scoop up my dress to pack it inside when something slips from the folds.

I freeze, my hand hovering over a small metal cylinder. I turn it over. There’s a star on one end. I open it, expecting it to be emergency lipstick that was left by the previous owner, but it’s a drive of some kind.

“What’s that?” Maddie asks.

I turn it over in my hands. It’s not a USB, it’s too big. It looks powerful. Dangerous. “I think I just found what Caleb’s looking for?”

“What? How would you have it?”

I shake my head, trying to piece it together. “Thane. He must have tucked it in my dress when the cop hauled him out of the elevator.”

“We have to get it to Caleb,” Maddie says. She taps her phone and makes the call. But pulls the phone away from her ear two seconds later. “It didn’t go through.”

“He uses a burner when he’s undercover,” I say. I try Serena, but it goes straight to voicemail as well. Shealwaysanswers.