If Blue was with Emily and Emily was working for Heather, then that meant Blue was in LA. The amount of time it would take Paul to make the round trip might clue her in as to how far away they currently were.
“I have a few other things to take care of first, so it might be a while.”
That didn’t help.
“Though I promise to have you two reunited by the end of the day.”
Madison fought to maintain her composure. “That would be great, really great.” She cringed a little when she said it. It sounded false and ingratiating, but Paul didn’t seem to notice. “Just as long as you’re sure you can pull it off without raising suspicion.”
Paul lifted a brow, and Madison fell silent. Not once since she’d known him had he ever had a problem getting what he wanted.
Madison rubbed her fingers over the burn scar on the inside of her arm. There was a new scar just above it, from where the tracker had been torn from her flesh. Whoever had done it had clumsily stitched her up again. So by the time Paul had found her, an infection was setting in. Luckily, Paul knew his way around such things and got her cleaned up and restitched. He must’ve done a good job, since all her various wounds seemed to be healing a lot faster than her ankle was.
The tracker had wound up next to a body so ravaged by coyotes that everyone had at first mistaken it for hers. Apparently, Layla, Tommy, Aster, and Ryan had been out looking for her. How funny it would be when she managed to track them down first.
“You going to be okay, staying here alone?”
Madison struggled to a sitting position, making it appear so much harder, and much more painful, than it actually was.
“I’ll be fine.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “But maybe you can give me another pill?”
Paul rubbed at his chin, looking conflicted. “They’re highly addictive.”
Madison groaned. “Fine, then. Leave me alone for hours on end with nothing to do but think about how much pain I’m in so I can relive all the terrible things I’ve been through.”
Without a word, he brought her two tablets and a tall glass of water. “Four hours between these. No sooner.”
“You’re going to be gone that long?”
Where the hell were they?
“Probably not,” he said. “But just in case.”
She placed the tablet onto her tongue and went through the motions of pretending to swallow.
When he finally grabbed his laptop, pocketed his keys, and headed out the front door, Madison reached for her crutches and rushed toward the window, where she watched through the curtains as the tires crunched over the gravel and the car backed down the drive. Once he’d pulled onto the unpaved road and driven out of sight, Madison hurriedly changed into one of the disguises Paul had brought along in the event they needed to go out in public.
With her wig adjusted and makeup in place, Madison stood before a mirror and searched her reflection. She had no idea if it would work, but she was committed to trying.
She made for the safe and punched in the code. All that time pretending to sleep had paid off. Paul grew careless when he assumed no one was watching, making the combination easy to crack. Inside, just as she’d hoped, she found an envelope stuffed thick with cash, the key to the old Jeep he used for local errands and stored in the shed, a burner phone, and a gun.
She reached for the pistol and curled her fingers around the grip. The weapon felt big, weighty, but reassuring all the same. She lifted her arm, aimed the barrel toward the opposite wall, and feigned pulling the trigger. Thanks to Paul’s training, she was more than capable of handling it. Madison was far more adept than most people realized when it came to such things.
She was just securing the money and gun into her bag when she noticed a plastic ID card hidden under a stack of fake passports.
It was from West Virginia, and at first she wondered if it might be her own, or even Paul’s.
But as soon as she flipped it over and saw the face and name labeled on the front, she had all the proof she needed to know she’d been right all along. Paul had been lying when he claimed he didn’t know the first thing about the man he’d murdered.
Madison studied the man’s face and realized she’d never really forgotten him. What memory—perhaps in an effort to protect her—had relegated to a blur, was now staring right back at her.
This was the man who’d found her in the middle of Death Valley.
The one who’d dragged her back to his shack and tried to assault her, until Paul came along and planted a bullet in the side of his head.
Even on his ID, he looked dodgy, seedy, and yet vaguely familiar.
Although she didn’t recognize the name, she knew better than to pretend the West Virginia ID was a coincidence.
Now more than ever she was convinced that everything that’d happened to her was directly related to what had gone down one decade before.
The past never really stayed buried.
And now hers was rising up to haunt her.
After memorizing the face and corresponding stats, she carefully placed the ID in the center of the safe, so Paul would know without question that Madison was onto him.
She struggled to her feet and took a few tentative steps. Her ankle was tender, but she was determined to manage without any sort of crutch, literal or figurative. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she limped out the front door, more than ready to reenter the world.
Layla pulled into the parking lot, slipped free of her car, and searched for Trena’s dark red Lexus coupe as she found her way to the entrance of Lake Shrine. She’d made a point to arrive early, thinking it might give her the upper hand, or at least help to restore some of the confidence she’d recently lost.
From the moment she’d woken from her nap, she was inundated with texts, emails, and voice messages. It seemed every major news outlet had gotten wind of her blog post and wanted an interview.
Wearily, she deleted them all and gave her father strict instructions to hang up on anyone who dared to call and ask about it.
Trena’s was the only call she’d returned, though she still wasn’t sure why, other than the fact that she and Trena shared a connection. They’d met the first day Madison was presumed missing, and as much as Layla had grown to distrust and resent Trena, there was a time, not long ago, when Layla had believed in, and even admired her.
Now she viewed Trena as yet another morally ambiguous sellout in a city that specialized in them.
Still, Layla was smart enough to know when she was in over her head. She hoped Trena could help her make sense of the mess she’d found herself in.
Layla walked along the sun-dappled pathway. With the swan-filled lake on one side, and a fragrant garden tangled with blooms on the other, she took in the golden lotus archway, the houseboat, the statue of Krishna playing his flute, and the sarcophagus said to contain Gandhi’s ashes, and