Page 76 of Lawton

She looked down. "I don't want to fight about it. I just need to go, that's all."

Well, that cleared things up. "That's all," I repeated.

"It's just that –" She glanced around, as if looking for some magic escape hatch. "I don't want to leave Chucky alone."

It was a lie, and not a very good one. But hey, I'd play along. "And you just realized this?"

She nodded.

I gave her a long look, searching her face for clues. Bishop's words echoed in my brain.

Stop being stupid.

She's hiding something.

He was wrong. He had to be. Therehadto be a simple explanation. I started at the beginning. She'd gotten locked out, and one thing had led to another. And now, she was second-guessing things because – well, I didn't know why. Unless – maybe the whole thing had been an act?

"You know," I said, "you didn't have to lie to me. I would've helped you either way."

She lifted her chin. "I wasn't lying."

Okay, maybe not about that. But she was lying about something. I gave her a dubious look. "Right."

"Are you gonna let me go or not?"

"You wanna go?" I said. "Fine. But you're not walking. Not alone." I glanced down at her clothing. "And not like that." The shoes didn't fit, and the hoodie fell almost to her knees. She'd be an easy target, assuming she didn't freeze to death first.

"I'll be fine," she insisted.

"Yeah? And how are you gonna get inside your house?"

"I'll figure something out."

I gave her another long look, trying to figure out what went wrong. Where was the girl on my couch? The one who snuggled against me and made me feel whole. The one who'd laughed and flirted and kissed me like she meant it. The girl who'd fallen over the fence and into my heart.

Damn it. Wherewasshe?

From the look in her eyes, that girl was long gone. Something in my gut twisted. The way it looked, she wasn't coming back, at least not tonight.

"Alright. You win." I reached into my pocket for my keys. "But I'm still driving you. And that's not negotiable." I glanced toward the nearest garage. "I'm gonna get the car. I'm guessing you wanna wait here."

She nodded.

Right. Because this was an escape. From me.

"Yeah. I figured." I turned away, walked a couple of steps, but then turned back. "And just so you know, you can run off if you want, maybe scale the fence, whatever. But so can I. And I guarantee you, I can do it a lot faster than you can."

Before she could argue, I turned around and kept on going.

Five minutes later, we were pulling out of the driveway. As I navigated the quiet street, I said nothing, and neither did she. But then again, I hadn't expected her to.

When I turned into her driveway, I heard her voice, quiet and subdued. "Thanks for the ride."

Yeah. And thanks for the bag of mixed signals.

I gave her a sideways glance. In the oversized clothes, she looked small and worried, like a kid with monsters living under the bed.

Shit. Maybe the monster was me. Pushing down my anger, I cut the engine and opened the driver's side door.