“You know what? I’m going to hit the restroom first.” Jonathan took another sip, set his glass on the table with a restrained bang, and pushed back his chair. It scraped across the tile with a stuttery yowl.

Donna called after him, “John!”

His phone buzzed a double notification into his pocket just as he hit the door marked GUAPOS. He thought Donna might be checking in with him, short quick notes of allegiance or what the hell. She wasn’t used to seeing him angry. It had never been useful to have her worried about that. So he had always made angry look like anything but. He let it smolder under the banner of being tired or busy or everything’s fine. He never raked his chair across the floor and stomped off with a mouthful of margarita.

But the text read: Alert: Exterior_1 Driveway

Alert: Exterior_2 Front Door

Another came in as he tapped the app open to see the images.

Alert: Exterior_3 East/Front

The phone buzzed in his hand, alive with message after message.

Oh, fucking hell. Jonathan felt slack, like a spool of twine that had lost its spindle, his train of thought falling off him in unraveling threads.

He should never have ignored Roy. The driveway camera had snapped a photo of his truck as he’d rolled in. Exterior 2 showed Roy moving toward the front door. He’d left his truck door open.

Roy had crossed over to his right. Exterior 3 showed him slip past the office window to the side of the house.

Alert: Exterior_4 East/Side

Jonathan sucked in a cold breath that needled in his teeth. In a short pause in the stream of alerts, he looked around the corner of the restroom alcove, back toward the table. Donna and Carly were deep in brow-furrowed conversation. Carly raised her hands in a big, angry non-Carly-like shrug. Jonathan’s chest ached at the sight of it.

Alert: Exterior_3 East/Front

Alert: Exterior_2 Front Door

A foggy blankness covered the place in his mind where he kept his plan. He couldn’t fit this into what he could no longer see clearly. Roy was probably banging on his front door right now, croaking out his brokenness on John’s front stoop for everyone to hear with that stupid dilapidated truck idling in the driveway. Shit.

Alert: Interior_1 Foyer

Roy was inside. Jonathan sprinted for the parking lot.

CHAPTER NINETEEN