by Sara Shepard
“I guess we know where we’re going next.” Maddox wrapped his arm around Seneca, and she let him. Even leaned into it. It finally felt like they were getting somewhere.
They climbed back into the car, which was beginning to feel stuffy after all the time they’d spent there. Seneca groaned as she clicked her seat belt. “I hate to bring things down, but there’s someone we need to check in with.”
“Oh shit,” Maddox murmured. Brett.
But Madison perked up, intrigued. “Wait. We’re calling him, right?” Seneca nodded. Madison smiled mysteriously. “I might have a way we can track him. It’s something I read about this morning.”
Seneca looked shocked. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I can’t make any promises,” Madison warned as Maddox pulled away from the house. “But if you talk to him long enough, we just might be able to get somewhere.”
IF BRETT HAD to estimate how many miles he paced along the short hallway outside Aerin’s room today, he’d have to say at least six or seven. When he wasn’t talking to her or surfing online, he walked back and forth, back and forth, trying to figure out what to do, trying to calm himself, oscillating between perverse excitement at touching Aerin and annoyance that she hated it. There was the shame and guilt he felt over the fact that he was hurting her, and the billowing pride he felt because he was totally overpowering her and had the upper hand.
Up the hallway was I like hurting Aerin. Down the hallway was I shouldn’t hurt Aerin. Up the hallway was I love Aerin. Down the hallway was I hate Aerin. Over and over and over, hour after hour after hour, flip-flop flip-flop, until it was time for him to prepare her food or answer another call from Seneca or make sure Aerin was sleeping or go inside her room and—Delight! Horror! Disgust! Ecstasy!—touch her again.
It was so freaking hot in here, so he walked to a window in his room and opened it. Then he peeked into her room. Aerin was sleeping again. Her golden hair was splayed against the pillow. She didn’t move even when the opening door squeaked. He watched her for a while, aware of his heavy breathing, and then shut it again, tamping down his desires. As much as he wanted to lie next to her, the anticipation was even more delicious than the actual act. He would lie next to her someday…and she would learn to like it. In his fantasies, that day would come when they were truly together, when she realized everything she needed to know about him, when she realized he was the one she should love.
Or that day would come when she was dead, and the only thing he’d nuzzle would be her corpse. It was quite remarkable, Brett noted, how wildly his mind could change.
His phone buzzed in his back pocket. He pulled it out and squinted at the screen, then smiled. Seneca was calling.
“Hello, darlin’,” he purred. “What’s new?”
As if he didn’t know already. He’d slowly watched the pointer icon on the GPS tracker crawl to Catskill—first to Damien’s parents’ house, then to the police station, then to the middle of the woods. So they’d found the house.
“We dug up an old book of ferry tickets in Sadie Sage’s place,” Seneca said in a clipped voice.
Brett raised an eyebrow. Impressive. “Look at you,” he said.
“The tickets are to a place called Tallyho Island, which is off of Staten Island. We’re going to head there now.”
“A ferry to where?” Brett asked.
“Tallyho Island,” Seneca repeated. “Have you heard of it?”
Brett’s gaze returned to the open window in his room. The curtains fluttered in the breeze. His heart stopped. What was he thinking? He might as well hang a neon sign over it for Aerin saying Escape Here! She’d already tried to leave once—she was going to try again.
He ran over and shut it fast. He couldn’t believe he’d almost made such a crucial mistake. The first rule of kidnapping was to make sure there was no way for your prisoner to escape. Everyone knew that.
“Tallyho Island?” he scoffed, realizing they were waiting for his response. “It sounds like a fake name. Like I’m a knight going off to battle. Tallyho!” He said it in a British accent, but no one laughed. He glowered at the closed window. He needed to get a padlock on all the windows, actually. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?
A new alert flashed on Brett’s screen, this one from the security software he’d recently installed. Warning. Someone is trying to access your location. Hang up and restart within thirty seconds or your security will be breached.
Brett gripped the phone, seeing red. Unbelievable. “You really think it’s going to be that easy?” he said in a low voice.
“Huh?” Seneca sounded caught off guard.
“You really think you’re just going to find me through your phones? If you want a clue about where I am, Seneca, you should have just asked. Because guess what? You already know where I am. You’ve been here before.”
“Wait. I’ve been there? Just me? What do you mean?”
Brett stabbed END, tossing the phone across the room. He felt so scattered, though it wasn’t really because they were trying to access his location. He would have been insulted if they hadn’t tried to do that. It was something else that was making him feel so antsy—something unexpected creeping up from his depths, laughing in his ear. The windows. Definitely the windows. How was it that he’d forgotten to secure the windows?
My, my, my, a voice inside him teased. Is there actually something to put heartless, calculating Brett Grady off his game?
Hell no, he told the voice, shaking off the feeling. He was in control and he was pleased—Seneca and the others were actually doing everything he wanted. He was still the mastermind here. And they were putty in his hands.
“SHIT,” SENECA WHISPERED, whacking the passenger seat with her fist. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Madison’s phone was connected to hers through a USB cable, and it ran an app that could find the cell phone towers near where a caller was calling from as long as the phone call lasted at least two minutes. Seneca had tried to draw out the length of the call with Brett, and slowly, the little status bar on the app had begun to fill.
Until Brett figured it out. Would they ever get one up on him? Was this just a losing battle?
Seneca started fiddling angrily with the metal tab on top of the soda can she’d gotten from the hot dog stand, twisting it back and forth, back and forth. So close…and yet so far. The last thing Brett said to her swirled in her mind. You know where I am. You’ve been here before.
“What does he mean about me knowing where Brett is?” she murmured, more to herself than the rest of the car. “Is he back in Avignon? Did he take Aerin back to Dexby?” But Brett had said You’ve been here before—it was something specific to her, not the others. Annapolis, maybe? That was where she lived, after all. The University of Maryland? She’d done a semester of college there until her obsession with Case Not Closed got in the way of attending classes.
“Maybe he just said it to make you crazy.” Madison popped a fresh piece of gum into her mouth. “Maybe it means nothing.”
“But what if it’s something? Should I go through every location I’ve ever been to in my entire life?”
“I agree with Madison,” Maddox said as he put on his turn signal. “This is his way of distracting you from the case. You can’t get obsessed with it.”
“Who says I’m obsessed?”
Seneca wrenched the tab of her soda so vehemently it snapped off in her fingers. The exposed metal sliced into her skin, and a bubble of blood bloomed. She brought her finger to her mouth and sucked. Her blood tasted like metal, off-putting and unsavory. More blood trickled down her wrist.
“Are you okay?” Maddox cried worriedly. He reached over and opened his glove box. “I think I have a Band-Aid….”
“I’m fine,” Seneca snapped, her harshness surprising both of them. Then she curled into herself and stared pointedly out the window. She knew she was acting rash and overwrought. But she couldn’t help it.
Maddox took the hi
ghway to New York City, then followed the bridges through the boroughs until they got to Staten Island. According to the website, the ferry for Tallyho Island departed from a port in the south. Once there, they found families sitting at picnic tables eating early dinners. A shredded flag bearing the crest of the state of New York whipped against a metal post. The ferry bobbed in the water, ready to go. Seneca kept sucking on her hurt finger, feeling unsettled.
Everyone climbed out of the car. Madison headed for the bathroom, and Maddox found a bench and sat down. He smiled at Seneca and patted the seat next to him. Reluctantly, she sat down and stared at the sparkles in the pavement. Why did it feel like she was about to be lectured?
“I’m sorry, okay?” she mumbled. “I’m sorry I’m acting so obsessive.”
“I didn’t say you were obsessive.”
She lay her hands in her lap. Her thumb was pinkish, but at least it had stopped bleeding. “I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s like, if I don’t get him, I’m going to lose my mind.”
Maddox sighed. Then he turned to Seneca. She turned to him. Tentatively, he reached for her, pulled her close, and kissed her temple. Seneca stiffened. She knew he meant it to be comforting, but instead she felt claustrophobic…and guilty.
She pulled away, ducking her head. “Maddox, I don’t think…”
Maddox twisted away. “I wasn’t trying to…” He let his hands fall to his lap.
Seneca hugged her arms to her chest, her cheeks burning. What was wrong with her? He was just trying to make her feel better. And she did like Maddox. But at the same time, she wasn’t sure she deserved the comfort or the pleasure of having a boyfriend. They needed to get Brett. They needed to save Aerin. She couldn’t think of anything else. And suddenly, that Maddox could think of something else made her feel uncharitable.
She looked up at him. “We need to be serious about this. We need to focus. Not…you know.”
Maddox blinked at her. “God, Seneca! Why do you keep saying I’m not focusing? Aerin’s my friend, too. But if I think about how awful it is every second of the day, I’m going to go apeshit.” He breathed out through his nose. “We just need to lighten up a little.”
“Lighten up.” Seneca felt a pinch of annoyance again. “Sorry if this is all too miserable for you to handle.”
“That’s not what I mean.” His shoulders went limp, and he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Look, I can’t turn off how I feel about you. I’ve wanted this for so long, and I know it’s crappy timing…but it’s still there, you know? It’s hard.” He glanced at Seneca, and though she wanted to respond, she just hunched her shoulders and stared at her lap. “I also want to be there for you. This is so stressful, and I can tell you’re really feeling it. I wanted to do something. I thought kissing you might help. But if it’s not, then maybe something else will distract you. How about you actually talk to me? Tell me what you’re feeling? I know this is hard for you. I just want to know how.”
There was a big cloud over her head in the shape of a chomping alligator. Seneca let her gaze rest on it. How to explain to Maddox that she didn’t want to feel better? That she wanted to sit with this pain, wallow in this anger, confront all the feelings, no matter how ugly, because that ugliness was going to push her forward and give her the courage to find what she needed to find?
She could feel a heat radiating from Maddox; his need for her felt palpable, like the leaves of a plant bending toward sunlight. But her sadness and anger and desperation tightened around her, forming a tourniquet, blocking all the blood to the emotional parts that needed human connection. She knew she was being brittle and unfair and, yeah, probably obsessive. But she couldn’t help it.
A sharp horn sounded from the water. A blue-and-white ferryboat had arrived at the dock, bobbing in the waves. Madison strolled from a ticket machine with round-trip passes for everyone. Seneca looked at Maddox. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, giving her an unsatisfied smile.
She stood and took her place in line, and Maddox and Madison followed. Travelers queued up behind them. As the ticket taker began to accept passes, Brett’s hint drifted into Seneca’s mind once more. You’ve been here before.
She squinted at the boat looming over them. He must not mean Tallyho Island, then. She’d never been there before.
“First time on the island?”
A man in the line smiled amicably. He wore a Martha’s Vineyard Black Dog T-shirt, had a pair of binoculars on a strap around his neck, and his nose was sunburned.
“Yep,” Madison piped up. “First time.”
“Hope you like it.” He pointed at the phone in Maddox’s hand. “But you know that’s not going to work when we pull in, right?” He pointed out to sea. “Wireless signals are banned there. It’s a quiet zone. Even if you did get service, which you probably won’t, no one can call in, and you can’t call out, unless it’s to 9-1-1.” His smile made his eyes crinkle. “Personally, I love it, but I could see how you young folks might get a little antsy without your Instagram and Snap-whatsit.”
Seneca exchanged a spooked but intrigued glance with Maddox and Madison. Maybe they would find something at Tallyho Island. No one can call in, and you can’t call out. The place sounded like a black hole, cut off from the world.
Seemed like the perfect locale to do very bad things.
AERIN WAS SO exhausted from panic and worry and terror. And because she’d been too proud to eat all day, her stomach gnawed on its lining. She was thirsty, too, because Brett didn’t allow her to just go into the en suite bathroom for a glass of water. Her throat felt like sandpaper. Her eyes were heavy, but whenever she closed them, she saw Brett looming over her, eyes wild, ready to kill her.
It’s okay, she told herself. I have a new plan. She still wasn’t fond of the plan, but it would hopefully keep her alive for as long as possible. Until Seneca found her. Until she could go home. Until she could go to Thomas’s hospital bed and keep him alive by sheer will. She hadn’t dared ask Brett exactly what he’d done to him, and her imagination had spiraled in crazy, irrational directions.
The door opened and Brett walked in. “Here,” he said stiffly, dropping a tray to the nightstand. Not looking her in the eye, he cut the zip ties. “Five minutes.”
“Thanks,” Aerin said, grabbing a spoon and dipping it into the bowl of ramen he’d brought. This was part of the new plan: no more refusing the food. She needed to eat to keep her strength up if she was going to fight him at some point. She slurped the soup quickly, greedily, glancing at Brett for his reaction, but he wasn’t looking at her. Since her botched escape, he’d become distant. This new Brett scared her even more than attentive, touchy-feely Brett. He was probably still smarting from her near escape, but he seemed distracted, too. What if he was tired of her? What if he somehow knew about the hair in her back pocket? What if he killed her?
She couldn’t let that happen.
“Brett?” she called out, dropping the spoon back into the bowl.
Brett looked at her wearily. His hands were jammed into his pockets, and his jaw was taut.
“Can I still call you that?” Aerin asked. “I don’t even know your real name.” She shifted her legs around to face him. When she offered him a smile, Brett blinked, the confusion and mistrust obvious on his face.
“Brett’s fine,” he grumbled.
Aerin slurped. The ramen tasted delicious. In her old life, at school, she used to make fun of kids who microwaved ninety-nine-cent cups of ramen for lunch—it was the school’s award-winning sushi bar or nothing for a girl like her. “So I’ve been wondering. How did you get my mom to buy that I was going to LA? It was you, right? Because I have no idea why she thought that otherwise.”
Brett’s eyes darted back and forth, like he was trying to work out if this was some sort of trap. “I hacked your e-mail. Wrote her a message as you.”
“Wow. That’s impressive.”
Brett searched her face. Aeri
n could tell he wanted to enjoy the compliment, but he still wasn’t sure.
She slurped up another bite of ramen. “So why LA?”
Brett stared toward the window. “I don’t know. It’s far away.”
Aerin stretched out her long legs. For a moment, Brett resisted looking, but then he gave in and seemed to drink in every inch of her. “I guess you don’t know me as well as you think. I can’t stand LA. Want to know why?”
It took him a moment to answer. “Why?”
“My father took me there on a work trip when I was younger. We stayed on Hollywood Boulevard, and right in front of our hotel was this dude dressed up as Spider-Man who accosted me every single time I walked out into the sunshine. I hated that we kept getting stuck in traffic. I hated the scenery. And the air smelled weird.”
Brett didn’t crack a smile, but he hadn’t left yet, either. “Tell me where I should have sent you.”
She felt her soul lift from her body and examine this scene from above. You are having a rational conversation with your kidnapper, a voice in her head screamed. What is wrong with you?
“Well, a long time ago, my parents took me and Helena to Mallorca,” Aerin said, ignoring the voice. “I was maybe seven or eight. It was beautiful. That’s my go-to fantasy place.”
“What did you like about it?” Brett asked, sitting down on the bed. Yes, Aerin thought, though she felt nervous, too. Brett was so close. He could reach out and squeeze her throat, pressing his fingers into those bruises that were still purple and painful.
She tried to keep her cool, taking a sip of water. “The house was open and breezy. We had this awesome pool that overlooked the sea. And it smelled so good there…nothing like the beaches here. At the end of the two weeks, I never wanted to come back.” She moved a smidge closer to him. “Have you been to Spain?”