“Didn’t sleep,” he said, turning off the vacuum. “Vince and I are driving out to the body shop today, so I figured I should clean up. We’re gonna stay at Dante’s over the weekend so Vincent doesn’t have to make the commute to work.”

Dante was a close friend of ours and had been one of our first clients; we’d built his T-Bird into a beast that consistently ran low 10s at the track. He lived far closer to Vincent’s job than we did, so instead of commuting to the club four days out of the week, Vince would sometimes stay at Dante’s place instead.

I sipped my coffee, watching as Jason slammed the doors. It was a good thing he was going with Vincent — Jason turned into a grumpy little shit when he didn’t sleep, but he’d stay up for days at a time regardless and it would only get worse if he was left to his own devices. He’d fixate on a project, and once his brain got going, he wouldn’t stop until he collapsed or until Vincent made him.

“I thought you were driving over this afternoon,” I said. “It’s six-fifteen in the morning.”

He sighed, pausing to lean down and pick up Haribo. “Yeah, well, like I said, I couldn’t sleep. Going on forty-eight hours awake, so I may as well try for seventy-two now.”

“Does Vince know you’re doing that? He’s gonna be pissed.”

Jason grunted again in response. I was going to have to convince Vincent to put some sleeping pills in his cereal or something. He slouched down on a stool, rubbing the little dog’s belly.

“Have you looked at Jess’s list yet?” he said. It had been easy to guess that she was the current fixation making him so irritable.

“Yeah.” I’d studied it thoroughly, multiple nights in a row. Sometimes I revisited my favorite sections, just to remind myself that her interest in being “stalked” and “kidnapped” really was a five out of five. “Have you?”

He nodded. “I don’t think she knows what some of those things mean, dude. That chick is not into golden showers. I don’t believe it.”

“I guess you’ll have to try it and find out,” I said, and he laughed as he shook his head. “We all know she’s a freak. She’s trying to keep up appearances and please her parents.”

He rolled his eyes. “What a waste of time.” He paused, birdsong filling the silence as streams of sunlight peeked in through the trees. “Speaking of which…her parents are going out of town today.”

That caught my attention. “Oh, yeah? How did you find that out?”

“Facebook,” he said. “They’re flying to Cabo for their anniversary, and will be gone for a week. Her little sister is staying at a friend’s.”

“You already got her family’s passwords?”