Page 61 of One Good Crash

"Right."

Right?Again?I gave a confused shake of my head. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, I know more than you think."

I was almost afraid to ask. "Like what?"

He leaned forward. "I know you've been living in Nashville. I know you used to work in Bestie's Pub. I know you were employee of the month five times and that your boss cried when you quit."

My jaw almost hit the table. "How do you know all that?"

"I've got my sources."

"Yeah. I just bet." I straightened in the booth. "But maybe they're not as good as you think."

"How so?"

Actually, his recitation had been pretty spot-on. Grasping at straws, I said, "Well, like my boss, she didn'treallycry. There might've been a sniffle or two but…" And then, way too late, my thoughts caught up with my emotions. "Wait a minute. You pried into my business?"

"No," he said, "I checked your references. Big difference."

"Not to me."

He shrugged. "Hey, it was all public."

"It was not," I insisted. "It was private."

"You want some advice?"

"No."

He continued as if I hadn't spoken. "If you want something private, keep it off the internet."

I stared at him from the other side of the booth. "That's a sorry defense, and you know it."

"I'm not defending anything," he said. "If you ask me, you should be more careful."

"Except Ididn'task you, did I?"

"Yeah, well you should've."

My gaze narrowed. "You went through my wallet, didn't you?"

Hehadto. I mean, how else would he know my last name? Or where I'd been living?

He didn't deny it, and by now, I was almost quivering with righteous indignation. "Isthatwhy you agreed to hold it last night? Because you wanted to snoop?"

"No," he said in a tone of infinite patience. "I went through it because you were missing, and I wanted a place to start."

"To start what?"

"Looking." His gaze didn't waver. "For you."

I wasn't sure I believed him. "What else did you do? Go through my phone?"

"No."

Just as I breathed a sigh of relief, he added, "You've got a password, remember?"