Page 108 of Only the Devil

Jake hesitates.

“It’s okay. I’ll stay right here,” I assure him.

He eyes Sterling, and Sterling holds his hands up. “Do I look dangerous to you?” When he raises his arms, Jake eyes his waist.

“Jacket off. Turn around.”

“Jake,” I admonish.

But Sterling does as he asks. He looks beaten, like he’s aged ten years this afternoon. Without the jacket to augment his thin physique, he seems almost frail.

“Dude,” Thompson says. “Paranoid much?”

Jake shoots a glare Thompson’s way, then steps up to Phillip and pats him down. Seemingly satisfied–and not caring at all about awkwardness–he says to me, “Stay in front of the headlights. Right here.” Then to Thompson, he says, “Have you checked the plane?”

“Did the check,” he says. “Got distracted though. Like I said, thought I heard a noise in the woods. Probably a deer.”

“Let’s make a loop,” Jake says, his gaze canvassing the expanse of land before settling back on me.

I give him a reassuring nod and half-smile, hopefully relaying I’m good with him canvassing the perimeter. If I scream, he’s bound to hear me. There’s nothing out here.

If Thompson tries anything, Jake will take him down. Jake’s in fighting shape, and Thompson could star in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial featuring a traffic cop.

As I watch Jake and Thompson walk side by side out of sight, going along the side of the hangar, Sterling puts his suit jacket back on and, once dressed, speaks.

“I figured out who tampered with the presentation.”

My lungs seize in a vice, but I force a casual, “Who?”

With his hands folded in front of him, with his suit and silver rimmed spectacles, he could be a lawyer or a judge. Or he could be the devil.

“I think you know the answer to that, Daisy.”

I inhale deeply, debating how to react, not because I fear for me, but because if he tries anything, Jake’s going to come around the side of the building and kill him.

“What I want to know is why?”

I step back, closer to the Jeep, readying for flight.

But no, that’s not why I’m here.

I square my shoulders to face off.

“Alvin Reed.” I let the name hang in the air between us. He knows about him and my connection to him. I don’t need to say more.

“A man entered into a high-risk investment, lost, and because he gambled when he shouldn’t have, you decided to ruin my life?” He’s calm. If anything, he’s inquisitive.

“You killed him,” I say. “If you hadn’t killed him, I wouldn’t be here.”

“He’s dead?” Phillip’s a good actor, I’ll give him that. But as his surprise morphs into a touch of fear, I’d have to grade his thespian skills as amateur and too over-the-top for believability.

He closes his eyes, then pinches the bridge of his nose, his spectacles sliding up slightly from the movement.

“How did he die?”

“Like you don’t?—”

“How did he die!” He’s within inches of my face, and while he’s yelling, it’s the fear I sense emanating from him that scares me most.