“You know what I love?” Lincoln said. “I love that you care. About some drunk pedophile on the sex offenders list. You’re a much better person than I am.”
Fuck, I hope so.
“Don’t worry about him. He died painlessly. And by the time the cops track down his DNA, you, Gen, Marshall, and I will be long gone.”
Long gone. She was going to disappear where no one—not the police and certainly not her brother—would ever find her. She would leave Las Vegas and never come back. It might have been her hometown, where she was born and raised, and where her parents were buried, but she would never voluntarily set foot in it again. She just needed one thing first.
“Do you have it?”
“Always business. Just like Dad. You’re more like him than you think.”
“Take that back.”
Lincoln laughed. It was genuine and disarming, and almost made her trust him. “Well, he would have been proud of you anyway. They both would.”
That’s when Persey snapped. “Proud of me? For what, standing by while you killed six people?”
Genevieve laughed. “Standing by? You practically ruined it today by trying to save them!”
Ugh. These two really were perfect for each other. She thought of Shaun’s shrieks, of Mackenzie’s pulverized remains, of the sound of Riot’s body being squished by the collapsing ceiling. This was her fault. Their pain and suffering were on her head. “None of them deserved to die.”
Her brother’s head snapped up, eyes wide, nostrils flared. He looked like a bull who’d just been released into the ring. “Are you fucking kidding me? They killed Mom and Dad!”
Persey bit her lip. She wanted to tell him that she knew, that she’d been listening that afternoon in the kitchen. She wanted to ask how he’d moved their bodies to the office and made a murder-suicide look so convincing. Maybe he bribed the police. Or maybe he was just that brilliantly evil. Either way, she was done pretending that this whole endeavor had been one big helping of justice served instead of what it actually was: a way for her brother to appease his bloodlust.
She lowered her chin and stared Lincoln dead in the eye. “I know exactly who killed Mom and Dad.”
Lincoln didn’t blink, but the lines of his face tightened. He knows I know. Good. If there was one thing Persey wanted to take away from this horrible day, it was the knowledge that her brother was ever so slightly afraid of her.
Lincoln gave his head a shake, tossing off the tension that had descended upon him, harshing his post-kill high, and reached into a side compartment in the wall of the limo, removing a slim white envelope. “Here.”
Persey’s fingers trembled as she took the envelope from his outstretched hand, then tucked it into her bra strap beneath her shirt. Inside, the access codes to a bank account with ten million dollars. Her future.
“Aren’t you going to look at it?”
“I trust you.” She didn’t, but if he hadn’t given her a portion of the inheritance like he’d promised, it wasn’t as if she had any recourse. “What time is my flight?”
“In two hours,” Genevieve answered, pulling her phone from her bag. “You change planes in Atlanta, then Chicago, then back to Las Vegas. Similar to your flights in this morning. It’ll take all of tonight into tomorrow, but it should make it difficult for anyone to trace you.”
Persey nodded. Especially since I’m buying a new ticket out of Chicago. It wasn’t just the police she was running away from. “What about you guys?”
“Marshall has a one-way ticket to Brazil. He’s got a business scheme down there. Gen and I are headed back to Phu Quoc island for a little honeymoon on the beach.” He slipped his arm around his wife’s waist, pulling her close.
Persey didn’t know much about Vietnam, but she was pretty sure it was a country with no extradition treaty.
“And then?” Lincoln continued. “I don’t know. LA, I think. I rather enjoyed my time as Kevin. Maybe I’ll try my hand at acting?”
“I’m sure you’d be great at that,” Persey said drily.
Her brother grinned, amused. “Or maybe I’d be better suited as a producer. I did a rather good job of it today. Maybe game shows. Or competitions.”
Persey didn’t really care what he did as long as he did it far, far away from her, and silence descended upon them as Marshall pulled into the terminal at McCarran Airport.
“One question,” Lincoln said, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees. “Why did you choose Persephone?”
Persey wondered if her brother even remembered that Persephone was her middle name, that she’d always felt some sort of kinship toward the kidnapped princess who spent half the year in a cage of luxury, or that she’d always hated her first name, but she wasn’t about to share any of that. “I’ve just always liked it.”
“You could have used your real name,” he pressed. “No one even knows who Kimber Browne is.”
Kimber, a name more suited to a cheerleader than a loner. That name was dead.
“I guess.” Persey shrugged, then realized she had one more question for her brother. “Do you have a name picked out?”
His face lit up, delighted to be asked. “As a matter of fact, I do. Abe, after Abraham Lincoln. Get it?”
Ugh.
“And Bronson. It means Browne. An homage, if you will.”
“Abe Bronson,” Persey said committing it to memory as she opened the back door of the limo. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.”
He leaned forward, eyes dancing around her face. “I’m relatively sure you’ll see that name again.”
(NOT) THE END
I’VE ALWAYS SAID THAT WRITING A NOVEL “TAKES A VILLAGE,” but writing a novel right after giving birth to a child brings a whole new meaning to that phrase. Here are the people who made #NoEscape possible:
To my husband, John Griffin. I usually start with the professionals and end with the family, but I literally could not have written this novel without his help, taking over baby duties with our newborn son over and over and over again to give me time to write. And sleep. Well, mostly write. I couldn’t do any of this without him.
To my editor, Kieran Viola. When I turned in this manuscript, I told her that this was either the greatest book I’d ever written or it was completely unreadable. She assured me it was somewhere between those extremes, and then really helped me mold this manuscript into the madcap murderfest it is.
To my agent, Ginger Clark, who definitely endured more whinging from me during the course of this book than during any other time in our long partnership. Thank you for putting up with it.
To the fabulous team at Freeform Books, whose collaborative efforts made this book shine, especially Marci Senders, Cassidy Leyendecker, David Jaffe, Guy Cunningham, Christine Saunders, Seale Ballenger, Elke Villa, Dina Sherman, Marybeth Tregarthen, and Sara Liebling.
To my “orange” family at Curtis Brown, who have continued to kill it (see what I did there?) for me through ten novels, especially Sarah Perillo, Nicole Eisenbraun, Holly Frederick, and Madeline Tavis.
To my mother, Peggy McNeil, who came for multiple visits during my deadline push to lend a hand with the baby and make sure I got as much writing and editing time as possible.
To the entire NICU staff at Cedars-Sinai who lovingly took care of my son for forty-six agonizing days when I should have been writing this book but wasn’t.
And lastly, to my son, also John, who would nap beside me while I worked and has taught me a whole new meaning of the word love.
GRETCHEN McNEIL is the author of #MurderTrending, #MurderFunding, I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and the Don’t Get Mad duology, as well as the YA horror novels Possess, 3:59, Relic, and Ten, which was a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and was adapted as the Lifetime original movie Ten: Murder Island in 2017. You can find her online at www.GretchenMcNeil.com, on Instagram @Gretchen_McNeil, and on Twitter @GretchenMcNeil.
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