The band plays straight from the first song into the next, and I raise my lighter to Nicki in question.
Her face lights up, and she pops open the bracelet containing the herbs.
A few minutes later, she’s packed her pipe, and my heart stalls as she raises it to her lips with her right hand. I should have remembered she wears the ring on her left hand and smokes with her right! I can almost feel Garrett’s “expect the unexpected” stare boring into the back of my head. Thinking fast, I pretend to have trouble getting the flame to catch, cupping my free hand to block the nonexistent breeze.
“It’s kind of windy,” I yell over the music. “Can you help?” She lifts her left hand to shield the herbs, but what I need her to do is switch hands so I can get a good angle on the ring. I keep fiddling with the lighter, clicking away, figuring these photos will be better than nothing. “I actually think the breeze is coming from the other side. Maybe switch hands?”
“Why don’t I light it myself?” she asks.
“No!” I scream too loudly and too forcefully. “I mean…this lighter is vintage. It’s finicky. It’s better if I do it.”
“Why don’t I help?” Garrett asks, climbing onto the table.
“It’s okay. I’ve got it,” I say, brushing him off.
I’m not sure, because he says it so quietly, but I think I hear him mutter, “Stubborn.”
Blessedly, Nicki switches hands, giving me a perfect view of the ring. In the daylight, the stone appears amethyst, and I flick the lighter, snapping several pictures before allowing the flame to catch.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Garrett smirking, but I ignore him.
Nicki inhales deeply and offers me the herbs. I pretend to inhale, coughing out a puff of smoke before passing it along to Joanna. When it comes back my way, I pass. Feigning dizziness, I wait through a full song that seems to go on forever before announcing I need to use the restroom.
“I’ll come with you,” Eric/Adam/Nash says. “Maybe I can get that hair sample?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now,” I say, swaying, racking my brain for a way to thwart him. “I wouldn’t want them to see herbs in my system.”
“It’s a DNA sequence—they won’t know what you just smoked. But are you feeling okay? You look really pale,” he says. “Let me make sure you can walk without collapsing.”
“I don’t want you to miss the show. I’ll be fine.”
“Let him go with you,” Nicki says, cozying up to Garrett, sitting so close she’s practically in his lap. “I’d hate for something to happen to you.”
Eric frowns at Nicki and Garrett but turns to me with a smile. “Come on.”
Garrett catches my eye, and I realize he still needs to give me the canister with the ring mold. Dammit. I look wildly around for a solution, but then he casually slips a hand into his pocket and I feel the weight in mine. He must have passed it to me when I was lighting the herbs, though I didn’t notice a thing. Apparently, his practice with Kyran is paying off. Allowing precious seconds to pass, I wait for him to tell Eric/Adam/Nash to stay, to offer to go with me, but he’s absorbed in Nicki. She rests her head on his shoulder, and he snakes his arm around her waist. They laugh at some private joke, and I might as well not exist.
My heart thuds as time ticks by, and I can’t wait for him any longer.
I guess I’ll have to take care of Adam/Eric/Nash—whoever—myself.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
March 20X6, San Francisco
“I thought I’d never get you alone,” Eric/Adam/Nash says once we’re out of earshot, his fingers circling my bicep.
How many nights have I dreamed of seeing him again? But not like this. His hands are like shackles.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he continues. “I thought you were dead.”
“I could say the same about you,” I mutter. Missing his Australian accent, with a sideways glance, I search his face for something recognizable—salt from a morning spent surfing—anything that will make him my Adam, but he remains a stranger. Fury that I was so easily duped bubbles to my lips, and I want answers. I stop walking. “Your real name is Nash?”
“Yes.” He takes me in. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to tell you that.”
My throat aches, but I refuse to cry. “Was any of it real? Self-Awareness? Sam?”
He frowns. “Technically, I’m not allowed to answer that…”
Narrowing my eyes, I grit my teeth. “You just did.” I wriggle from his grasp and back away from him.
“You didn’t let me finish.” He catches my hand before I can escape, and holds me in place. “I know you want answers.”
“I don’t want to hear any more lies, that’s for sure.” My lips tremble.
“I totally owe you the truth…” He falls silent. Seconds pass, and, seeming to make up his mind, he takes a deep breath. “My first mission after my initiation was to steal your Book of Secrets.”
My jaw drops. “You stole my book? But how? You were live on Deena’s feed when my hotel room was broken into.”
“I didn’t physically steal it, but I knew where it was.” He sighs, his eyes rolling skyward before returning to my face. “There are Disconnects everywhere, Ella. We had a contact on set. Do you remember Crystal Harrison?”
Crystal knows Adam? For the second time since he came back into my life, it’s like the wind has been knocked out of me. She stole my book? My brain whirls.
“Why did you want my book?” I ask. “Who hired you?”
Shifting his weight, he wrinkles his nose. “That, I can’t tell you.”
“So much for the truth.” Throwing his hand off, I move to stomp away, but he clasps my wrist, halting me.
“It was the people you’ll work for once you’re initiated. That’s all I can say. But you’ll see… I’m on your side. Ask me anything else. I’ll be honest. Promise.”
“Please stop touching me.” I snatch my wrist away. “I won’t run if you’re going to give me answers.”
He lets me go, and I take a step back to create distance between us.
“How did whoever hired you know about my book?” I ask, my hands on my hips. “I never took it out in public.”
“You mean you thought you were invisible hiding under dining room tables?” He laughs. “Corporates have computer chips in everything—they have cameras in their shoes. And you can imagine how valuable that information was to the Disconnects and Corporates alike. To have a list of who can and can’t be trusted? Of their dirty little secrets?”
Of course they had cameras in their shoes. I’m an idiot.
“We had to get your book before the Corporates did—before President Madden did. They would have done anything to keep those secrets out of Disconnect hands, including ending your life. We had to protect you.”
President Madden wanted my book? I shudder.
A parade of girls wearing colorful feathers bumps past us, and my internal clock ticks to life. I don’t have time for this. I have to get rid of him. My head spinning, I move toward the restrooms. Nash matches my pace.
“And hooking up with Deena was a bonus?” I ask, wanting to run but not wanting to alert Nash that I’m on a mission.
“Necessary. She really was blackmailing me, and I needed to keep my Influencer status until I was sure we had your book. Believe me when I say I had no interest in her beyond that.”
I ignore the hope in my chest that some shred of our past was real, that I wasn’t totally gullible. “Why were you in Tahoe, then? You had the book. You could have left, gone back to being Nash—or whoever you are.”
We arrive at the restrooms, and the realization that I really don’t know who I’m talking to ripples through me. One misstep and I could ruin Garrett’s heist. I press my lips together.
“That’s the thing.”
He steps closer to me, tucking a stray strand of my pale blue hair behind my ear. “What I didn’t count on was falling for you.” His mouth lifts at one corner, causing his left eye to crinkle, and I glimpse the old Adam. My insides quiver, and I steel myself against him. I am not falling for this BS…
“I knew from your book you were curious about disconnecting, and I was going to confess, ask you to come with me. But you beat me to it… If our plan worked, I would have told you everything. I was on the boat, coming to get you…but then”—he swallows—“it all went up. We got blown backward. I was farthest from the blast, so I survived—barely.”
It’s too much to comprehend. As I sift through the information, realization seeps through me. “You read it,” I whisper. Sucking in air, I grasp the tiger’s eye I wear at my throat, simultaneously aware that Garrett would kill me if he knew I was wearing it. Everyone has a tell.
He smiles down at me. “Most of it. Crystal thought I might find the parts about me entertaining. She genuinely likes you. She’d be very happy if there was still hope for you and me.”
“Well, she can forget that.” I shake my head. “I thought she was my friend. I thought you were my friend. But you were both using me.”
“No. The situation is complicated, for sure, but your first instincts about me weren’t wrong. Despite how it may seem, I’ve always wanted to protect you. So has Crystal.”
“What do you mean, my instincts?” I say slowly.
“Crystal told me about your talents…and those DNA scans in your book are pretty interesting.”
I close my eyes, remembering my parents showing me the scans, my joy when they said I was meant to act—like them—and then how I shoved them into my book for safekeeping because the scans were printed on actual paper and I couldn’t bear to throw them away. But those scans also reveal the truth about my birth… Who else knows? My parents think they’ve buried the past to secure their future, but whose hands is their fate really in…? Despite the warm day, I shiver. Even though I shouldn’t care what happens to them, I can’t fully erase the desire to be their prized little girl.
“Where is the book now?” I ask, opening my eyes.
“I don’t know. Honestly.” He holds his hands up as if that could prove his innocence. “Crystal was my contact, and she handed it off to whoever hired her. But don’t worry. It’s in Disconnect hands.”
The sun beats down on my back, and sweat beads on my forehead. Remembering the wax in my pocket, I know I need to hurry and inch toward the shade of the restroom. “What do you want from Nicki?” I ask, backing away from him.
“I’m trying to protect her, just like I was trying to protect you. What about you and Garrett? What do you want?”
“It’s classified.”
He considers me before closing the distance between us. “Fair enough. Listen, Ella, I don’t know why you’re here, and your presence—especially Garrett’s—complicates things for me. I admit I’m no match for his charm, but I’m glad you’re here. I want us to be friends, Ella. And to prove it, I’ll send a fake hair sample for you.”
“I’d appreciate that, but I don’t know if we can be friends,” I say. All I know is I need to get out of here. Now. “Can I have a few minutes to myself? Please? This is a lot to process. Could you go back and tell everyone I went home to lay down?”
“If you need to lay down, let me make sure you get home okay.”
“Adam—Nash. Whoever you are. Seriously. I can’t think with you around. I’m going to the restroom.”
He nods but refuses to understand. “I’ll be here when you come out. Now that I’ve found you again, I’m not going to let you go.”
“Fine. Wait here.” I disappear inside, slamming the metal door shut behind me. Once I’m in a stall, I pour the nitrogen over the wax, which fortunately still holds a perfect impression of Nicki’s ring. After slipping the eight-millimeter film images into the second canister with the stolen Italian ring, I stuff everything into the key fob. Changing into my disguise and taking extra time to unclasp my tiger’s eye necklace and stuff it into my garter, I climb out the window, escaping before Adam notices I’m missing.
Chapter Forty
March 20X6, San Francisco
“You’re okay.” Garrett runs his fingers through his hair and crosses the apartment to me as soon as I walk in the door. Wrapping his arms around me, he rests his chin on my head.
“You were worried?” I say to his chest. It’s all I can do not to melt against him.
He releases me and holds me at arm’s length. “When Nash came back and said you went home to lay down, I didn’t know what to think. I hoped you were able to ditch him, but I couldn’t be sure. I don’t trust that guy. I should never have left you alone with him.”
No kidding. “You had Nicki to deal with.” I shrug him off and pretend seeing them together didn’t bother me. “And I can hold my own. It’s done. Dead drop complete.” Slumping onto the couch, I pull the wig off my head and loosen my real hair, letting the blue waves fall to my shoulders.
His lips curl into a crooked smile and he sits next to me. “How did you get rid of him?”
“I didn’t. I went to the bathroom and slipped out the window. He wouldn’t leave my side, but he did offer to send in a fake hair sample.”
Garrett’s eyes narrow. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.” I shimmy out of my poncho. “Maybe because I’m with you?”
He shakes his head. “I doubt it. He usually has his own agenda, and it doesn’t include helping me.”
I cock my head to the side. “He complimented you, though. He says he’s no match for your charm.”
Garrett lets out a bitter laugh. “I wouldn’t say that. I always wanted to be him. I learned from the best.” He eyes me up and down. “How did you get him to tell you that? It seems like a lot of information to give a thief he just met…”
“Maybe he was feeling chatty,” I say, thinking fast. “He must know I’m from Keystone if I’m with you.”
“Maybe.” He raises his eyebrows, but fortunately he seems to buy my logic. “What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. He asked what I wanted with Nicki, and I said it was classified. He said he was here to protect her… He doesn’t seem to be after the ring. Wouldn’t he have stolen it already if he was?”
“Probably.” He stands and paces the length of the room. “But I don’t know what else he could want, unless he’s trying to create some kind of alliance…” He comes to a stop, his fingers drumming on the back of the couch. “Maybe Simon has access to some technology we don’t know about, or it has something to do with the kidney farm…”
“Who are the people we work for once we’re initiated?” I ask. “That’s who he said he worked for.”
Garrett snorts. “There’s no one person. There are hundreds of collectors out there and also different factions of Disconnects—some with their own personal agendas. He could work for any of them. I don’t know whose side he’s on.”
“But you used to be friends?”
He comes around the couch and sits on the coffee table, facing me. “A long time ago. We grew up together, and we were close as kids, even though he’s a couple years older than me. He’s a legacy, too. His mom is one of the greatest thieves of all time—”
My stomach twists, and I know who she is before he says it.
“—Crystal Harrison. She was an Influencer who disconnected to Keystone when she was pregnant with him, and his dad was a Corporate crook, for sure.”
I’m too sick to respond.
He changes the subject. “Anyway, I think I’ve figured out how to switch the rings.” He hands me a brochure.
“Ring Around the Rosie?” Grateful for the distraction, I focus on the glittery gold letters being repeatedly spelled out, as if written by a ghost hand, across the broc
hure. “It’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?”
Pursing his lips, he ignores me. “It’s a traveling play—a Bubble Car tour of the city. At every stop, there are performances, and you interact with the actors. I thought it might be a good way to make the transfer. We could plant Chloe in another car. Once we get the ring, we can pass it to her, and she’ll drop it for us.”
I hand him back the brochure. “Will she help? Won’t she be jealous of you and Nicki?”
“Why would she be jealous?”
“She’s your girlfriend. If you were my boyfriend, I wouldn’t be very happy watching you flirt with another girl.”
Resting his forearms on his thighs, he leans toward me until his eyes are level with mine. “If I were your boyfriend, you would know you were the only one. You’d feel the difference between what’s real and what’s part of my job. I wouldn’t leave any room for doubt.”
My heart thunders in my ears.
“Besides,” he says. “She’s not my girlfriend.” He sits back, blessedly giving me some much-needed air and folding his arms over his chest.
My lips part. “What? But I thought—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“Or see? You’re always together.”
“Are we? Seems to me I’m always with you.” He raises his eyebrows.
I roll my eyes, hoping to distract him from the blood flooding my cheeks. “Heist aside.”
He shrugs. “Chloe has her own agenda. She likes to make it look like we’re a couple because she thinks being ‘in’ with my family will give her better placement in the field down the road—at least that’s why I think she does it—we’ve never talked about it. I go along with her because it makes my life easier. There are fewer distractions and less drama if I’m taken. I’ve known all the girls at Keystone—except for you, of course—since birth. It saves me from having to have the ‘you’re like my sister’ talk over and over again.”
“And technically I am your sister.”
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