Tara’s eyes narrowed at me, but again none of the emotions took over her entire face.
So fucking weird.
Now that I was looking for it, I could see how forced everything that she gave us was.
Monster started to scratch on the door, and before I could turn and open it to allow him out, the door opened behind me.
I felt my heart leap into my throat as I turned.
Thank God I was standing in front of the door, otherwise Tara would’ve seen Theo.
Holy fuck.
She startled when she saw me standing right there, then read the expression on my face.
But before I could say a word, Tara started talking.
“That’s against the law,” Tara tried.
Theo looked automatically sick to her stomach as she backed farther inside. Monster, seeing his opening, slipped out.
The moment he got to where Rome was standing, he sat, then started to growl at Tara in a low, intimidating rumble.
“That’s not illegal,” Rome said. “Since I was the one paying for all that shit. You left, it all went to Goodwill. End of story. Why would you come now? Why not just call?”
“It was a ring. My grandmother’s. It meant a lot to me,” Tara continued to lie.
Monster ramped up his growls, causing Tara’s eyes to go to him.
Tara started to cross her arms over her chest and narrow her eyes, and I saw another difference between the two women.
None of Tara’s emotions reached her eyes. They were all partial. As if she was smiling, but it was one that didn’t travel up her face to encompass her eyes.
For instance, there were no frown lines at all as she glared at Rome. Who didn’t narrow their eyes or anything when they were glaring? Wasn’t that what a person did?
“I can see you still have that awful dog,” Tara sneered.
The ‘awful dog’ had been awful based solely on the fact that Tara hadn’t liked him. Even more, Monster hadn’t liked her, and had always expressed his dislike of her even when he was a puppy.
“I do,” I confirmed. “I can see you still have the unwarranted hate for him.”
Tara sneered. “That dog used to shit on my lawn.”
He had.
But…just sayin’…that lawn had belonged to me. And it’d been at the divide of the property lines.
That, and I’d hated Tara, so I’d allowed my dog to shit on her part of the dividing line just because I liked to piss her off.
So sue me.
“Still likes to and the Wheelers don’t give a shit,” I told her.
Tara scoffed. “I’m sure they do.”
“No, they really don’t,” I confirmed.
The Wheelers were great. They were the perfect couple to have in a rental house, mostly because when they were there, they were friendly and courteous, as well as fun. But, the majority of the time they spent in their RV traveling around the continental US.
That was when Andy got out of the vehicle that was parked a little farther down the street.
I hadn’t realized he was there at all.
“Can we go already, Tara?” Andy snapped. “I have places to be.”
His eyes went first to Tara, then to us, then back to Tara.
He knew that he’d interrupted something rather heated and liked it.
“I’ll be there when—” Tara began to say.
“Now,” Andy interrupted. “Or you’re fucking walking home.”
Tara’s face went utterly emotionless. It was quite an eerie sight to see.
Tara huffed, took one last look at her old place, and then started walking quickly to the car.
How had I not seen Andy until now?
Because you were blinded by crazy, that’s why.
The car started, and seconds later it was halfway down the road.
Rome’s eyes went round, and he stared from Theo, who was now standing in the doorway, to Tara who was quickly speeding down the street and shook his head.
“I’m not sure how I never saw it before,” he said softly. “But I definitely do now.”
I turned to Theo without a word.
“I need you to check Linnie,” I said softly. “Wake her up…ask her if she has something on her that, I don’t know, could be used as a tracking device of some sort.”
God, it could be absolutely anything.
Thank God I was smart and stored all her shit at the rental property that I owned next door, the one that Tara had stayed in with Matias.
When I’d pulled onto my street, a thought had occurred to me that maybe I should go through her shit and make sure.
But I kept second guessing myself, thinking that there was no way in hell that they’d plant a tracker in a little girl’s shit.
So I’d stored it at the rental house next door, thinking that it was a good idea.
My phone rang, causing me to reach into my pocket to get it.
“We can’t locate Tara,” Hoax said into my ear, sounding worried.
I laughed humorlessly. “I can.”
Hoax started to curse. “She’s there?”
“Not anymore, but not really at my place. At her old place,” I said softly. “I stored all of her stuff there.”