Crossfire (Cross Duet #1)

7. IVY

7

IVY

My finger hovered over my cell’s keyboard as I stood at the bus stop, reading the latest barrage of texts from Pete. Ugh, it was beyond embarrassing that Detective Mitchell’s IT guy probably had these, too, when he downloaded the messages from Bob. I shouldn’t have told Pete what I was doing today. I knew he would get upset, but it felt irresponsible to not tell at least one person that I was meeting someone I had met online. And telling my mother was out of the question.

She would have shown up at my house to physically block me or maybe even called the police. In hindsight, it would have been a fair reaction, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was, I had confided in Pete—last minute, before he could pull any tactics to try to stop me.

Was it a little pathetic that I didn’t have more friends to choose from that I resorted to my ex-boyfriend? Definitely. But what was even more upsetting than my pathetic social life was Pete’s reaction.

I mean, worrying about someone was one thing, but he needed to stop with his all-caps texts. The literary equivalent of shouting, and now, I was on my way to meet him in person.

Maybe I should just go home. It would be mean, leaving him hanging, but at least it would give him more time to cool off.

No. If I did that, he would just show up, and then there’d be no getting him to leave. He would rant and rave for as long as he wanted.

At least if I met him at the coffee shop, I could walk out anytime I wanted, and truly, there was something far more pressing I should be focused on right now.

Who tried to kill me, and why?

Waiting for the bus to arrive, I closed my messaging app and prepared to search for answers.