Downgrade My Ride? I'll Upgrade My Groom! novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Cash

The diner was on Sheridan Road, three blocks from the intersection where the van hit me.

He'd picked it.

I didn't think that was an accident either.

At five-thirty in the morning it was empty except for a cook, a waitress, and a man in a gray hoodie in the last booth with a coffee he hadn't touched.

Clay sat at the counter behind me with his back to us and a newspaper he wasn't reading.

That was the deal.

I'd go to the booth alone. He'd be close enough to hear me breathe.

The man looked up when I slid in across from him.

He was younger than I remembered. Maybe thirty. A wedding ring. Dark circles under his eyes.

He looked at the cut on my eyebrow and then at the table.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Tell me what happened."

He rubbed both hands over his face.

"I drive for the apps. Airport runs, mostly. Two weeks before your wedding a guy flags me down at a gas station in Lake Forest. Older guy. Nice suit. Says he's got a private job, cash."

"What job?"

"Pick up a bride at a house on the lake. Take Sheridan, not the expressway. Be at the light by the bank in Evanston at nine-forty exactly. Stop on the red. Don't go on the green, even if they honk." He swallowed. "When something happens, get out and walk away. Don't wait for cops."

"When something happens."

"He said a delivery truck would tap the back. A fender bender. Enough to make you late. He said it was a family thing, a joke on the bride, something about cold feet." He looked at me, miserable. "He said nobody would get hurt."

"The van hit my door," I said. "Not the back."

"I know. I saw it coming in the mirror. It was going way too fast." His voice cracked. "I got out, and I saw blood on your veil, and I ran anyway. Because I'd already taken the money."

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