by Ivy Smoak
He kept his foot on the gas as he shifted to pull it out of his pocket. I grabbed it and stealthily switched it with the one in my pocket. And I even more stealthily put Detective Torres’ dead thumb to it. The screen unlocked.
“I’m going to bring up some directions,” I said as I opened up Detective Torres’ emails.
“Sounds good,” he said.
I held the screen away from him and searched. “Turn right up here to get onto I-95.” I’d already memorized the route to Mexico. I didn’t need directions. I continued to scroll through Detective Torres’ emails.
There was only one email starred on the whole page. That seemed like a good place to start, so I clicked on it.
“We’re running low on supplies again.”
-T
T? Who the hell is T? T. The letter rolled around in my head. T. My mind stopped spinning when I remembered why I wanted Detective Torres’ phone in the first place. T for…Tremblay? It was definitely possible. Detective Torres had acted so weird whenever I brought up Canada. Like he was hiding something. I copied the email address into the search bar but no other emails from that address appeared. Why would Sophia Tremblay be emailing Detective Torres?
“You look pale,” Aiden said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I thought about Noah’s finger shoved down my bra. And Detective Torres’ finger hidden in my coat pocket. No, I wasn’t okay. I wanted Sophia’s address, not…this. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. What if Detective Torres was in on it?
My fingers shook as I continued scrolling through the phone. But there were no more starred emails. So I started at the beginning, opening and closing each one, searching for any more mention of T.
Aiden sped up as we merged onto I-95. We were getting farther and farther away, but I didn’t feel like I was any closer to the truth. And then I found an email worse than the one mentioning T.
“We got A now. The plan’s a go. It’s time.”
-T
T for Tremblay. And A for…what? I glanced at the man beside me, who claimed to love me. The man who knew my favorite color. The man who had studied a file on me. A man that had changed his face for my husband. But…what if he hadn’t changed it for my husband? What if there was some other plan behind his copied face? A could easily stand for…Aiden.
My head spun and so did my stomach. I felt like I was going to be sick.
We got A now. The plan’s a go. It’s time. Did that mean that they had Aiden on board with the plan? But what plan?
I looked at the time stamp on the email. It was sent on Friday morning. Aiden had called me Friday afternoon for our bar date. The plan.
I tried to duck my head so Aiden couldn’t examine me. Aiden knew he wasn’t Noah. He knew that Noah had been MIA for days. So why hadn’t he knocked Detective Torres out when I was being arrested? Unless… I stole another sideways glance at Aiden. Unless he was in on it too.
Snuggle Muffins sighed.
I know, boy. He didn’t have to spell it out for me. Aiden was leading me into a trap. I could feel it in my bones.
Chapter 31
Monday
Aiden turned on the radio, blasting cheery Christmas music through the car.
The music was too loud when my mind was already screaming. All I could feel was Noah’s severed finger pressed against my chest. I needed to make up my mind about what to do before we made it any closer to Mexico.
Aiden swore he knew me, but I didn’t know him. All I really knew was that he worked for my husband. And that he might be plotting something with Detective Torres. Neither one of those were good things. Neither proved that he loved me. Neither proved that I could trust him even a little bit.
I should have been celebrating my escape. Instead, I was worried that I was just bringing my problems with me. I slammed the volume button, turning the radio back off. Stupid Christmas music.
Aiden’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Not a fan of Christmas music?” he asked. “Good to know.”
“What kind of debt did you owe my husband?”
He licked his bottom lip.
Stop looking at his lips.
“My father was on the wrong side of the law. He needed to disappear. And not just with a sketchy fake ID. He paid half up front, but then skipped town when the other half was due.”
“He left you with his debt?” I thought Aiden must be a criminal. I hadn’t considered that he might have inherited his father’s debt.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “Noah threatened to take my mom and sisters if I didn’t work for him.”
“What do you mean take them?”
“Take them to use their identities for his clients.” He pulled his eyes away from the road for just a second. “It’s cleaner to take a real identity when you change your face. He usually killed the originals.”
Jesus. That’s probably what my husband was going to do to me. If I hadn’t killed him first, it would have been me dead. It didn’t sound like reasonable self-defense in the eyes of the law, but it felt right to me. “How much was the debt?”
“Two million.”
“So changing your face to look like my husband…that was worth 2 million dollars to you?” He would have had to pay me 100 million to make me change my face into a monster’s.
“He would have killed my family.”
“But surely you could have figured out another way to get the money rather than doing something so extreme.”
“I didn’t exactly have an inheritance to fall back on, Ensley.”
Ouch. I let the awkward silence fill the car as I looked back out the windshield. A light snow was starting to fall. Normally I would have been thrilled for a snowfall so close to Christmas. But if I was going to head north instead of south, it just made things trickier. I wasn’t fooled by Aiden’s sob story. I believed it, but that didn’t suddenly erase the fact that he’d worked for my husband, doing God knows what else. I couldn’t trust him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I just…I wish I hadn’t had to go through with it. I can’t even look in the mirror without cringing.”
It was really hard to be mad at him. “You don’t look just like him. You have laugh lines around your eyes. My husband didn’t laugh enough to have those.”
That earned me a small smile from Aiden.
“You knew about Sophia withdrawing the money. And my husband’s plan to leave me. Was he…was he planning on killing me?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t actually imagine my husband killing me. Hurting me? Sure. But why get his hands bloody if he didn’t have to? Why be plagued with nightmares if you could avoid it? “You said you ran errands for him that he didn’t want to run. Was that going to be one of them? Killing me?”
His Adam’s apple rose and then fell. “I would never hurt you.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question. Did he or did he not ask you to kill me?”
He pulled his eyes from the road. “He did. But I wasn’t going to go through with it.”
“You changed your face to protect your family. I’m a stranger. I know you would have killed me in order to protect them.”
“You’re not a stranger.”
Snuggle Muffins stirred in my lap. He could feel my agitation. He was the only one in this car that really knew me. No, Snuggle Muffins didn’t know what my favorite color was. Or why I fell in love with the white picket fence neighborhood. But he knew me better than the man beside me swearing he loved me. The one saying he was helping me escape. The one saying he never would have killed me.
“Were you in contact with Sophia Tremblay?” We got A now. The plan’s a go. It’s time.
“I have her address, if that’s what you mean. I’m not sure if she’ll still be there or not.” He told me the address from memory.
Either he had a really good memory, or he was in cahoots with her. I tried to study the side of his face to see if he was lying.
But I didn’t know his tells. I didn’t know him. I felt more uneasy the farther we drove. Maybe just a little of the unease came from the fact that I hadn’t needed to cut Detective Torres’ finger off after all. Aiden had known Sophia’s address the whole time. But at least I’d seen those emails. At least I knew something was up. The loss of a thumb was worth that.
“So what was the plan exactly?” I asked. “Trick me into opening the front door for you because you had my husband’s face? Then you were going to kill me?”
“I never got the final instructions.”
Because I killed him. I ran my hand down Snuggle Muffins’ back to calm him. I knew he was growing agitated from Aiden’s answers too. He had been planning on killing us. What was to say he still wasn’t? I needed to just ask him about the emails directly. I was never one to beat around the bush when it came to life or death.
“I took Detective Torres’ phone.”
He turned to look at me again. “Why would you do that? Lying to him and kicking him in the back of the head wasn’t enough for you? Now add theft to the list.” He sped up.
Also cutting off his finger and knocking him out again. But Aiden didn’t need to know about those things. “There were a few weird emails.” I discreetly used Detective Torres’ thumb to unlock his phone. “We’re running low on supplies again,” I read. “It was signed T.” I waited to see if he had a reaction. He didn’t. “I think T is for Tremblay. I think Detective Torres was working with my husband.”
“Why would you assume that? T could stand for anything.”
Or it could stand for Tremblay. “It would make sense that she was hiding out until after I was dead. Someone could have recognized me.”
“Do you know a lot of people in Canada?”
I glared at him. “Other than my husband and his mistress? No, not many.”
He licked his lips again.
Maybe I did know one of his tells. It seemed like he licked his lips when he was nervous. Which meant…he was hiding something. Why else be nervous? “Here’s another fun email,” I said. “We got A now. The plan’s a go. It’s time. Signed by T again.”
Aiden shook his head. “These are so vague.”
“Not that vague. I really think T stands for Tremblay. And I’m thinking the A stands for Aiden.”
“What? I’m not working with Sophia or Detective Torres. Ensley, I’m literally driving you to safety right now.”
“That last email was time stamped before you called me on Friday. Your whole plan to make me think you were my husband? I think the e-mail refers to that plan.”
“I swear to God, if Sophia and Detective Torres were talking, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Are you a believer in God, Aiden?”
His jaw clenched. “It was a figure of speech. But I swear to you all I care about right now is getting you to Mexico.”
“Why? Do the police already know I’m going there?”
“No.” He looked over at me. “I mean…hell, maybe. I have no idea. But if they do, I certainly didn’t tell them. What do I have to say to prove to you I’m on your side?”
“You have to tell me Detective Torres’ first name.” I was hoping I could catch him off guard with my lack of segue.
“Damien, I think?”
Traitor. There was no way for him to know that. “You only just met him. He never said his name. How do you know that?”
Aiden shrugged. “It’s a small town. He’s been all over the news because of that serial killer case.”
“I need to look in your eyes so I can see if you’re telling the truth. Stop the car.”
“We can’t stop right now. We’re barely thirty minutes out. We need…”
“Stop the car, Aiden.”
“We’re in the middle of the highway. I can’t stop.”
“Then take the next exit. We just passed a sign saying it would be in one mile.”
“If we stop now…”
I pulled out Detective Torres’ gun and held it up to his head. “Stop the fucking car.”
He looked more shocked now than he had when I’d confessed that I’d killed my husband. “Where the hell did you get a gun?”
Snuggle Muffins started growling at him. My beautiful little menace was just like his mother.
“Stop the car,” I said, ignoring Aiden’s stupid question. “Or I’ll blow your brains out all over I-95.”
Chapter 32
Monday
Aiden took the exit right away. But he didn’t follow the signs for the local diner or gas station. He just pulled over to the side of the road as fast as he could, cut the engine, and lifted his hands into the air.
I ignored the dusty town in the middle of nowhere Delaware and lifted the gun a little higher. “Tell me the truth. Are you working with Sophia and Detective Torres to take me down?”
“No. No,” he said a little more firmly when I didn’t lower the gun. “I had no contact with Detective Torres before this afternoon. And I wasn’t on security detail for Noah. I didn’t communicate with any of his mistresses.”
Mistresses. I knew it. That son of a bitch. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach, and it was growing by the second. “Are there any more women with my face running around?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“Are there more men with Noah’s face running around? Your face?”
“It’s just me,” Aiden said. “Please lower the gun. You can trust me.”
Snuggle Muffins started growling again, tapping his little feet on my thigh like he was considering pouncing.
“I can’t trust you,” I said. “You agreed to kill me.”
“And I never would have gone through with it. Hell, if you hadn’t drugged me on Friday night, we would already be in Mexico. I swear, Ensley. I’d never hurt you. Ever.”
I stared into his eyes. I believed him. I did. My hands started trembling. I believed him, but I knew I shouldn’t. Trusting him would be stupid. And I wasn’t stupid. “You swear you only knew Detective Torres’ first name from the news?”
“Yes. Everyone’s heard about that serial killer case with Violet. He’s a local celebrity.”
A bad one. “Then who are T and A? If it isn’t you and Sophia, who is it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the T stands for Tremblay. Maybe it doesn’t. But I know for sure that I’m not A.”
No, I wasn’t stupid. But his face reminded me of the man I’d married. His eyes held grief that matched my own. But they also held warmth, and hope, and a future. And his lips…stop. I wasn’t stupid. But I was a little worried that I might in fact be falling in love with him. Even if it was crazy.
I shouldn’t be falling for a man that looked like a monster. But he wasn’t my husband. He wasn’t. “If A isn’t you, who else could it be?”
“It could be anyone,” Aiden said. “I’m sure Detective Torres was working on more than one case. It might not even have anything to do with you.”
That was such a guy thing to say. What, did he think I loved being the center of attention? I was trying to get away with murder here. The only attention I wanted was his. “I don’t think everything has to do with me.”
“That’s not…” he sighed. “That’s not what I meant. Ensley, all I know for sure is that I’m the only one that has your back here. It’s just me.” He flashed me a perfect smile. “Well, me and maybe Snuggle Muffins.”
Definitely Snuggle Muffins, thank you very much. I looked down at my wonderful dog. As soon as I moved my gaze, I realized my mistake. But I was a second too late.
Aiden knocked the gun out of my hand so fast that I didn’t even get a chance to fire. And then he lunged at me. The car horn beeped as his hip slammed against it.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, but there was no one around. We were in the middle of nowhere and Snuggle Muffins chose now to jump to the back seat and explore the car. Traitor!
Aiden’s fingers dug into my wrist, reminding me why I hated men with his fa
ce. My knee hit the gear shift as I struggled to push him off.
“Get off of me!” I yelled. But it was no use. He was too strong. I felt behind me, trying to grab the door handle.
“Jesus, Ensley, stop!” He pushed both my hands down as he straddled me on my seat. “Stop!”
I couldn’t move my legs. Or my arms.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Any warmth I had seen in his eyes was gone. “Threatening to shoot me in the fucking head on the middle of the highway? You would have killed us both.”
I tried to move my arms, but they were pinned. God, why was he so big and strong? Stop.
“I’m trying to help you here,” he said. “And you’re…what? Giving up on life so easily?”
“I’m not giving up on life. I’m giving up on you.”
His eyebrows lowered as he stared back at me. “I’m not Noah. I’ll never hurt you.”
“You’re hurting me right now!”
“Only to prevent you from killing me.” His grip on my wrists lessened. “I’ll say it again, Ensley. I’m not Noah. I’ll never hurt you. And you’ll never cut me up into little pieces and try to fit me in a storage container. Deal?”
I stopped struggling beneath him, the air suddenly felt different in the car. The windows were fogging up. And I could feel him. His length hardening, pressing into my thigh. This was turning him on? That was crazy. He was the crazy one, not me. I shifted slightly, trying to move him closer to where I was craving him. Fine, maybe I was a little crazy too. Just a little. “No deal,” I said. “Stop acting like you know me.”
“I know you.” He lowered his head closer to mine. “You won’t.”
“Bite me.” It was an invitation. And we both knew it.
He let go of my hands and buried his fingers in my hair, his teeth lightly nipping at my bottom lip.
Screw everything else. My hands pushed underneath his coat. I hated his face. I hated the fact that he thought he knew me. And I hated that he used to work for my husband.
But I loved his mouth. His lips. His biceps. My fingers stopped on his muscles as his mouth devoured me. I may have loved him more than I hated him. I just wasn’t sure it was enough to make me jeopardize everything I’d worked so hard for.