Free Scare Crow by Julie Hockley Page A

pulled myself off his chest and out of his g rasp.
    I shook my head, certain I was imagining things a gain.
    His blue eyes were creased with worry, but his trademark grin was slowly spreading,
     softening his features a gain.
    I was still shaking my head in disbelief. “Griff? Is it really you?”
    He arched his brows. I dropped my groceries and jumped in his arms.
    He pulled me in, and I felt as though I’d been encased in cement for years and suddenly
     set free. As if the circle of Griff’s arms had taken us to another world, to our own
     realm, where money didn’t matter, where people like Spider and Victor did not exist.
     Where everything would be okay. Where just for a moment, I could be weight less.

CHAPTER FOUR: CAMERON
    PAYING THE PRICE
    I figured I would have some explaining to do. After I had deliberately left Spider
     in Jersey and flown to San Francisco without his knowledge, Spider started asking
     questions. When we finally met up in Los Angeles, we had barely spoken ten words to
     each other. Then again, we were both busy planning for the biggest drug shipment of
     our careers. We both knew this was going to be our redemption … my redemption for the captains. If we could pull this shipment off, it would bring more
     money to the captains than they had made in the last three y ears.
    Now we were on a plane heading to Montreal. A few hours together with no es cape.
    Spider kept his eyes pinned on a drop of water that was slowly making its way across
     the window. Wherever he was, he wasn’t sitting on a plane with me. Suddenly I realized
     that while I had been avoiding Spider, he had been avoiding me. And this concerne d me.
    “Carly not co ming?”
    Spider jumped a little at the sound of my voice. “She’s not feeling well.”
    “Seems like she’s been sick a lot lately. We have a business to run. Do I need to
     find someone to replace her?”
    Spider was back in his head, looking out the wi ndow.
    He was usually on top of everything. I had never had to ask anything of him twice
     or have him do anything over. But in the last few days, mistakes had been made, by
     both him and Carly. Numbers were coming back incorrect, messages were being fuddled,
     everything was coming in just a bit late. I normally wouldn’t call him on it, especially
     with the mistakes I’d been making myself lately, but there was something in his demeanor
     that now had me very conce rned.
    “You know you screwed up the order coming in from the Colombians,” I told him. “That
     was the third time in a row. I had to call and fix it my self.”
    Spider’s hand twitched, so I knew he was listening t o me.
    “Do I need to find someone to replace you too?”
    He turned his head. “I’d love to see you try.”
    “Everyone’s replace able.”
    Spider stared back at me. “Carly’s pregnant a gain.”
    I coughed up my club soda. I wasn’t sure what part had made me more surprised: the
     fact that Carly was pregnant … or that she was pregnant a gain .
    “Jesus,” was all I could mu ster.
    Spider was staring off into space, shaking his head.
    “What the hell are you two thinking?” I finally man aged.
    “You think this was my plan?”
    “You obviously had some part i n it.”
    Spider shut his eyes.
    I already knew the answer to his conundrum. When it came to Carly, when Carly had
     something on her brain, Spider and the rest of the world were defense less.
    As far as I was concerned, there never was a Spider without a Carly. When Spider and
     I met, Carly wasn’t just in the picture; she was the pic ture.
    We were cellmates in juvie. I was a fourteen-year-old wisp of a kid, and Spider was
     the kid no one dared to mess with. Rumor was that he had gotten nabbed beating up
     a man twice his size to the brink of death. Spider traded me all my telephone privileges
     in exchange for protection. It was an easy trade; I had no one to call.
    He called this chick named Carly frequently, obsessively, first in line for