Page 89 of I Will Ruin You

“They might find it,” Stuart said. “I can try to get rid of it later, leave it at the mall or something. What about your phone?”

“I turned it right off,” she said. “They can trace those, too, right?”

“Oh yeah, big-time. That was smart.” He gave her another smile. “You’re a smart girl.”

Stuart suggested she stay there with him until they could come up with a plan. He went out for take-out through the day and brought it back for her. Burgers for lunch, some Chinese food for dinner.

“I’m gonna need clothes,” Lucy said to him after they’d finished off the Chinese. “All I have is what’s on me. I can’t go home for more. The cops, or the dealers, they’re probably watching the house, waiting for me to turn up.”

“I saw something on the news,” Stuart said, waving his phone in the air. “They’re looking for you. You’re like, a person of interest.” He smiled. “You are that.”

“I didn’t kill him,” she said. “How could they think I killed him?”

“You’re not listening. That’s not what they said.”

“Can you get me some clothes?” she asked.

“I don’t know anything about getting women’s clothes.”

“I can write it all out for you. The sizes and stuff. You could go to Walmart. Get everything there.”

“Okay, you write it out. But we’re a little short on cash right now and I’m kind of maxed out on my cards. But that’s all gonna change soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“All in good time, sweetheart,” he said.

He didn’t like the look on her face when he called her that. And here he was, trying to help her.

“But before I get into explaining all that, there’s something else I got to do tonight.”

“What?”

“A business thing.”

Lucy was pacing the room, and given how small it was, she was going back and forth pretty furiously. She happened to glance, at one point, at something that was poking out from under the corner of one of the take-out boxes. She picked it up. It was a phone, with a photo of a Camaro on the protective case.

She looked at Stuart accusingly. “This is Billy’s phone.”

“Uh, yeah, it is.”

“Why do you have Billy’s phone?”

“I grabbed it when I was there. But don’t worry, it’s turned off, too, just like yours. Can’t be traced right now.”

“When were you there?”

“Okay, you need to sit down for this.”

“Why do you have his phone?”

“Just sit the fuck down and let me tell you.” She sat in one of the chairs at the small dining nook table. “So, I already knew Billy was dead when you came here.”

“How did you know? Jesus, Stuart, did you—”

He was already shaking his head. “Went to get some food and they must have shown up and done it then, because he was dead when I got back. I went to check, like, to see if there was any chance he was alive, and I felt his phone in his pocket and I took it.”

Her face said, Why?