His stomach bottomed out.
He knew who it was. And he knew answering was the wrong move. At this point, he wasn’t sure he wanted the money he’d been promised. Diego hadn’t contacted him since the other day, and part of Andy was relieved. But it looked like he had to deal with the jerk again.
The call went to voicemail a second time, but his phone immediately jolted to life again. It wasn’t for another call, but a text.
Unknown:
Answer Bing
When the next call came in, he forced himself to pick it up and swipe the screen.
“Yeah?” His voice cracked. Of course it did.
“Dude, next time, don’t make me call more than once. How’s my star hacker doin’?”
That voice—smooth, sly, like every word slid out around a wicked grin he couldn’t see but definitely felt—sent a cold prickle down Andy’s arms. Diego always sounded like a cat toying with a mouse that hadn’t realized it was cornered yet.
Andy pushed his chair away from the desk until it bumped the edge of his bed. “You don’t have to call me that.”
“Sure, I do,” Diego said. “It’s who you are. Smart kid. Quick fingers. Useful.”
Andy clenched his fist. That word—useful—shouldn’t have made something warm and ashamed twist in his chest. But it did. And that’s what scared him.
“What do you want?” Andy asked. “I did that thing for you already.”
“Mmh. You did,” Diego said, sounding pleased. “Good work, by the way. Clean. Efficient.”
Praise shouldn’t have landed the way it did—sharp and electric—but it crawled right under Andy’s skin. He hated that he reacted to it at all. He had fun testing himself by hacking into websites, but that’s as far as he ever went. He just looked around before retreating and wiping out any evidence that he’d been there. No harm. No foul.
“You said you’d give me the money,” Andy said. “That’s why you’re calling, right?”
“Right,” Diego drawled. “Got your five hundred waitin’ for ya. Come meet me.”
His pulse kicked hard. Half of him wanted to throw the phone across the room, the other half was already thinking about how far that money could go on a date with Kelle. “Where?”
“You’re in Whisper, right?”
A drop of cold went straight down Andy’s spine.
His fingers froze on the chair’s armrest. Every sound in the house—every creak, every groan of the old beams—seemed to sharpen around him.
“How do you know I’m there?” he demanded, trying and failing to keep the waver out of his voice.
Diego let out a small, amused breath. “I have my sources.”
Andy swallowed hard.
“Are you in Whisper or not?”
His heart pounded so loud that he almost couldn’t hear himself respond. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Diego said smoothly. “Meet me at the grocery store off Main in ten minutes. Far end of the parking lot. I’ll be in a black Charger.”
Wariness tightened his throat. “Why there?”
A chuckle, low and entertained, came through the speaker. “Bing, if I wanted to do something to you, I wouldn’t pick a place with security cameras and old ladies who don’t mind their own damn business. Chill.”
Chill. Right.