Page 49 of The Best Shot

Annie.

Annie had shown up outside my apartment with Tabby riding shotgun and a text that said, We’re here. Somehow, instead of locking my door and pretending I had never met either of them, I’d grabbed my purse.

“Lean back,” Tabby hissed from my left.

“What?”

“Recline. Get low.”

“Why?”

“Do you want him to catch us?”

“It’s dark, Tabby, and they’re not even⁠—”

“They just walked in. Get down.”

Annie, on my right, obeyed immediately and without question. Her recliner hummed backward, footrest lifting like a surrender flag. I followed, lowering myself until I was staring at the ceiling, the screen, and the poor choices that had brought me there.

The three of us raised our menus to chin level like we were deeply, academically invested in the appetizer section.

“The menu isn’t going to work,” I said from behind mine. “We already ordered.”

“It’s called a prop,” Annie whispered. “Shut up.”

The server came back to confirm Annie’s burger modifications, then stopped at the end of our row to assess the situation. He looked like a man who had seen a lot of things in this job and wasn’t paid nearly enough to figure out what our deal was.

“Confirming the burger, no onions, extra pickles?”

“Yes, please,” Annie said, eyes forward.

Tabby dropped her menu and flashed him a perfectly normal, warm smile, like she hadn’t been running tactical evasion thirty seconds earlier. “And could I get the truffle fries?”

“Of course.”

“And whatever cocktail tastes the most expensive,” I said, because at that point it felt like the only correct response to the situation.

He nodded once, professional, and left without commenting. I watched him go and considered tipping fifty percent.

“They’re sitting,” Tabby said, voice low. “Two rows up. Left of center. I think we’re good.”

We sat up.

“She’s tall,” Tabby noted.

“Great.”

“Very put together. Cute jacket. Sweet pixie cut, wonder where she gets her hair done.”

“Tabitha.”

“I’m setting the scene, chill.”

The lights went down before I had to respond, the first mercy extended to me all evening. The previews rolled. I ordered myself to look at the screen and nowhere else, which was easy, because I was a grown woman with self-control and there was no reason for me to care who Hale went to the movies with.

The movie started with a wounded man pushing through the doors of a country church, blood-streaked and silent. Annie made a small, involuntary sound next to me, somewhere between a breath and a yes.

I glanced at her. She’d already leaned forward, chin propped on her hand, eyes wide. Twenty minutes later, when I looked again, she hadn’t moved. She was gone. Fully sucked into the film and simply not available to us as a resource.