Burying her face on her arms, she tried to think through this on her own.
Pris arrived before Ariel could gather all her straying thoughts and organize them into a sensible pattern. At least Pris understood, sort of. Ariel rested her head and let Evie’s cousin find her mind.
The image Pris formed in Ariel’s head of the man and the Cadillac made her wince. She had no good means of relating to others, but even she recognized what this might do to Roark.
Reluctantly, she picked up her violated phone and checked her messages again. The man in the photo resembled a dissipated Roark, one with bags under his eyes and rounded shoulders instead of broad, muscular ones. The photoshop job was crude.
A message popped up from Roark:re-routing
She wished she didn’t know what that meant but she did. Re-routing phone calls had been part of his Plan, the one she’d rejected. She returned to her front door. Roark sat on the step next to Pris, working on his burner phone. Ariel expelled a sigh of relief. Pris must have agreed to read the script.
I wish I could do it.She’d love to bring down criminals, too.
“All right, your ma’s phone calls are now coming to me.” Roark handed the phone to a wary Pris. “Is there a time when the scumbag usually calls?”
“When I’m not around,” Pris replied in disgruntlement.
Recalling the phone calls she’d traced, Ariel corrected, “oh-ten-hundred to twelve-hundred, fourteen-hundred to seventeen-hundred.”
Pris looked puzzled but Roark nodded. “It’s fifteen-one-five now. We wait. We have two choices here.”
Ariel and Pris both looked at him with impatience.
For Ariel’s sake, he spoke slowly. He held up one finger to Pris. “One, we can tell the jerkwad your mother died.”
“Bad, bad hoodoo,” Pris said, shaking her head.
“Yeah, my granny would agree.” He held up a second finger. “We play him, try to trace the call, or get a phone number or anything personal.”
“That one,” Pris agreed. “I’ll play the death card later, if needed. Or maybe just say she’s in the hospital. Then I’ll smash her phone,” she added grimly.
Ariel would have started with phone smashing. Rather than sit around, she returned to work. She didn’t know what to say while they waited. She kept an eye on the security camera. Pris was weeding the neglected shrubbery. She couldn’t see Roark in his cave.
Pris’s phone rang at fifteen-five-five, right before Ariel normally ate. Except she’d already eaten. She gritted her teeth, looked at the computer screen she hadn’t finished working, and dragged herself out of her chair. Shehadto hear this.
They had the phone set on speaker, and Pris sat next to Roark on the front step. He nearly made two of her. Ariel felt a weird tug of... she couldn’t identify the emotion swamping her at seeing the two of them together, but she didn’t like it. She watched as he opened his laptop to the script he’d prepared.
The man on the phone’s accent resembled Roark’s, except more slurred and seductive than Roark’s crisp tones. “How ya doin’,cher? Are you stayin’ cool?”
“I have a cold,” Pris said stiffly, following the line Roark pointed at. “Where are you now?”
“Pauvre ti bête, sorry to heah dat! When I get dere, I fix you a hot toddy like my grandma used ta make, and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”
Roark pointed at another line and Pris read, “When will you be here?”
“Well, I ran into a speck of trouble down heah in Atlanta. Someone stole my wallet. Dey’re out using my credit cards to buy big screen TVs and da like. I’m talking to da police now, but it will be a while afore I can get new cards, ’specially since I gotta shut down my credit reports to keep dem from stealin’ my ID. It may be a few days.”
Ariel whistled. That was quite a ruse. Roark glanced over his shoulder and his expression was black as night. She thought maybe he’d wring the scammer’s neck if he could.
In a hoarse voice, Pris read the line Roark pointed at. “That’s awful. Does that mean you’re not coming?”
That Roark had a response for everything the scammer said pretty much proved this was a routine call. Where had he come up with that script? Ariel waited to hear the response.
“Aw honey, I know you wan’ dis car. It’s a beauty, I gotta say. Leather seats, smells great, and the sound system... you’re gonna love cruisin’ wit dis. Mebbe you take me for a ride when I get dere, huh, cher?” the suave voice drawled.
Maybe we’ll take an axe to your head.Ariel knew better than to say that aloud, but the expression on Roark’s face said she was reading his mind.
Pris, on the other hand, looked cool, calm, and collected until Roark signaled her next line. She glared at him, then coughed up a giggle. Pris wasn’t much of a giggler. The script saidgiggle?