Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 606

SERAPHINE

I cried until my throat burned and my eyes were raw, and then I stopped.

Crying was a luxury I could not afford. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, got to my feet, and looked around the alley like it owed me something. It did not. Nothing did. I had to get home first, and then I had to get Dominic Ford back, but plans needed legs, and I needed to be back home before Emerson's people caught up with me.

For the next hour I asked everyone who looked local about the cheapest and fastest way home. A woman selling fruit by the dock pointed me toward the train station. Three to four hours, she said, and I would be home. Four hours sounded like heaven and hell at once. There was only one problem. I had no money, and my stomach was eating itself.

I stood at the edge of the road, watching the taxis roll past, and I hatched a plan so simple it was almost beautiful. I flagged one down, climbed into the back seat, and gave the driver the address of the train station in my sweetest voice. He was a big man with a thick neck and a gold tooth that flashed when he smiled. He drove without talking, which suited me fine, because I was busy rehearsing my performance.

When we pulled up at the station, I reached into my pockets, and felt nothing. I checked again. Then I started to cry. It was a beautiful cry. Loud enough to turn heads, broken enough to sound real, and I made sure to look around the cab with growing panic, patting my lap, the seat, the floor, as though my wallet and phone had simply evaporated.

"What is it?" the driver asked, turning in his seat.

"My wallet. My phone. They're gone." I sobbed, my voice hitching. "I had them when I got in, I swear I did. Someone must have stolen them somehow. Oh God, what am I going to do?"

His face went through several stages: confusion, then doubt, then the slow dawning of a man who has seen every trick in the book and was watching one play out in real time.

"Check your bag," he said flatly.

"I don't have my bag with me," I wept harder. "They're gone. I'm telling you, they're gone. I have nothing. Please, sir, I'll pay you somehow, I promise. I'll send you the money the moment I get home, I'll..."

He stared at me for a long moment, his jaw working, and then he got out of the car, came around to my door, and opened it wide.

"Out."

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