Page 91 of Get A Fix

“If anything gets weird there…”

“Oh, come on, you really think Voss is going to show up here to kill Ash? That makes zero sense. Everyone knows it was Riggs in his car now, not him.”

“True, but if Riggs mentioned to Voss his meeting with Ash, Voss might infer, and rightly so, that because of Ash, the Feds know he isn’t dead. If I were stuck in the US now with no way to get out because everyone was looking for me, I might just go put a bullet in the head of the guy who made that happen before I spend the rest of my life in prison.”

“But wouldn’t he be looking for Ash in LA or on the set of the movie he’s making in Turks and Caicos?”

“No,” Rais said indulgently. “I’d be looking for him at Bitsy Walder’s wedding in Castine, Maine, because there’s a hundred thousand pictures on social media of him being there.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. But I have to tell you, you look much better than usual.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I mean, there are a lot of pictures of you looking very intimate with Mr. Lennox, and he can’t seem to keep his hands off you.”

“It’s terrible. It’s a real hardship for me.”

His laugh, as always, was good. “Well, regardless, for once you don’t look like you’re posing for a mugshot. You look happy, and apparently, when you’re happy, you’re not horrible-looking.”

“That’s charming, thank you.”

“I just mean, normally, you don’t photograph well. In person, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you’re handsome, but I could see you getting laid.”

“This is just getting worse, are you aware?”

“But in these pics, the grin is good, your eyes don’t look dead, and the only thing I can think of that it can be is that you like Ashford Lennox just a bit.”

I grunted.

“Don’t move to LA, though. You’re not gonna thrive there. Believe me, I lived there. You need seasons.”

“Fuck off. I live in Chicago. My family is there, my douchebag friends are there⁠—”

“Hey—”

“My job is there…but it’s fine. We have a plan already, so we’re good.”

“You have a plan already…well.”

“Just, I need to talk to Ash.”

“Call me if you need me.”

“I will. Thanks, Rais.”

“Always,” he said, and hung up.

Pocketing my phone, I turned and found myself face-to-face with Damien Morrow. Funny how inevitable things always sneaked up on you.

TEN

Of course it had crossed my mind that Damien might want to talk to me. It would make sense that he would have questions about my appearance at a family event. And if he did, we could chat. But if he hadn’t approached me, I certainly wouldn’t have sought him out. Still, I was surprised to find him barring my path.

“Hi,” was all I could think of to say, but then I remembered he’d done something both spiteful and stupid that needed clearing up. “By the way, I would appreciate it if you didn’t talk any more staff members into slipping you Ash’s room key so you can give it to hustlers.”

“What? He didn’t think that was funny?”