by Casey Diam
Pulling a few paper towels from the plastic bin attached to the wall, I dabbed my face dry.
Much better. All that crying was a long time coming, but it’s over; it’s done. Now, it’s time to focus.
Taking a final deep breath, I exited the restroom.
My eyes remained fixed on the large menu behind the cashier as I walked up to the counter, and then I remembered Caleb outside, waiting in the car.
Shit, he must be starving.
He’d only had coffee before we left early this morning.
The young man behind the counter waited as I looked over the menu.
“Can I have one toasted avocado sandwich, a large iced latte, and a small iced decaffeinated green tea?” I unzipped the small pocket on the right hip of my tights and pulled out two tens.
After punching a few keys on the register, he said, “Fifteen twenty.”
Grabbing the items as soon as they were ready, I rushed out to the parking lot to Caleb’s window. The window wound down, and a warm smile formed on his lips.
Dropping my wistful gaze to the bag in my hand, I held it to him. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“Thank you.”
I hurried back inside, and after a few minutes of sitting by the window, knees bouncing beneath the table for two, Sergeant Bailey walked in. I gave her a tense smile and steadied myself as she pulled out a chair. The reddish-orange shade to her neatly pulled-back hair seemed more vibrant than I remembered.
“I’ll jump right in, as I have to get back to the office as soon as possible.” She set her elbows on the table and lowered her voice. “There’s almost, but not quite, a double record of your existence. There were two records filed away. I’m sure one was invalid, but it was never discarded. In one file, you were reportedly found almost five years ago. But then, there’s another where you were also reported missing as a baby, but then, in the system, you were reportedly found a few days later by your parents. Those are the dates still logged into the system—the confusing part—both files show up as one record in the system, not two.”
Enclosing both hands around my disposable cup, I leaned in.
How would Carrie and Peter Wells have found me if they were supposedly dead?
“What? Sorry, but that is just stupid. It makes no sense.”
“I see why you might think that. But, I’m sure it was just a typo or someone just forgot to set the dates straight in the system. But don’t worry; I’ll have admin take care of it, and if you have any other relatives out there who might still be looking for you, this will help.”
I couldn’t let her do that. Not when I knew there was someone on the inside who’d deliberately made this happen. Specifically, Rodriguez.
“I don’t know if Carrie and Peter Wells were my parents, and I know the people who raised me would never have kidnapped me. They were my family.” Taking a deep breath, I observed her. The last time I’d tried to explain this to the cops or my shrink, they hadn’t listened to me. They’d looked at me with pity. They’d looked at me like I was crazy. I swallowed. “Would you believe me if I told you someone was after me?”
“Who?”
“The person who killed my family.” Straightening my spine, I waited, but she didn’t respond, just looked like she was thinking. “You didn’t give me that look.”
“What look?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. With this case and my parents case, nothing is like it seems, and I’m almost sure the more you look, the more confused you’ll get because, Sergeant Bailey, nothing about this makes sense. That wasn’t just a typo, and having someone change this error isn’t going to change anything. This isn’t about me. It’s about my entire family who was murdered. I don’t know if those same killers want me dead; though, since they’re after me now, I have a strong feeling they do. But I need your help to figure out why.”
Her lips parted, and when she said nothing, I continued. “There’s a reason I asked you to meet me here. I feel like I can trust you. Not only are things not what they seem, but also, people aren’t who they appear to be. All I want is answers, justice.” Vengeance, the roasting evil inside me contributed, but I ignored it—for now. “It sucks, not knowing who my actual parents were. Were they Carrie and Peter Wells, or were they Leanne and David Sawyer? For me, right now, it seems impossible to figure this out with everyone dead because everything since then has been manipulated and hidden in a way that makes absolutely no sense.”
“Do you have any idea who’s after you?”
“No.” My priority was finding out if Caleb and I had crossed the most fucked-up line imaginable. So, I told her, “I have some idea, and I could be your bait to get to the culprit but not until I have all the information I need because, before then, it’ll be too dangerous—not just for me, but for you, too.”
Bailey’s mouth opened again, but she remained quiet.
“I know, crazy, right? But all I need is any kind of information that will help me find out who my real parents were, and please, no one can know that you’re doing this. There’s someone in your office who I’m guessing is the same person who ensured my missing person file was corrupted, as well as the case files for my parents, whether it be the Wells or the Sawyers. That is why I said this could be dangerous for you, too, but you’re my last hope of getting some answers about who my parents really were, which would essentially tell me who I am. Paige Sawyer or Madelyn Wells.”
My heart began a robust thump against my breastbone. I had no right to try to bargain information out of a law enforcement officer. Even if I was just a nineteen-year-old college kid, I knew what I was talking about, and that was something she couldn’t deny. As I looked at her, she didn’t seem scared or doubtful. She seemed... interested.
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you so much.”
As Bailey exited the coffee shop and walked the short distance to her car, it was the longest minute of my life. I waited for her to drive away. And, as she did, I scurried out to where Caleb was parked, locked myself in his car, and let out a huge breath as my skin tingled.
“What? What happened?”
“I think she’s going to help us.”
“No way.”
My head bobbed. “We just have to hope that things aren’t buried too far because then I’ll be forced to go see your adoptive father and... chat.”
“No! Hell no!”
“You might be patient enough to sit around and wait for answers, but I’m not.” I moved my thumb and index fingers together. “And I’m like this close to blowing everything up until someone tells me what I need to know.”
“I said no, Paige. There’s no fucking way,” Caleb growled.
He should know better. He couldn’t tell me what to do.
“I went along with everything I was told when I was younger to stay safe, to leave it alone. Now that it has my attention again and I know for sure I’m not just being paranoid, I’m not going to stop. I can’t.”
“I need you to promise me right now that you won’t do anything stupid that will put your life at risk.”
Nibbling on my lip, I shook my head and let my lip slip from between my teeth. “I can’t.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Caleb
Leaning against the doorframe to the small closet, I watched as Paige sat on the floor and pulled on a pair of pink-polka-dotted gray socks. “I can’t believe you’re going to work.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re not giving yourself time to grieve. The first thing you did when you got back here was go to the gym.”
“I like working out. It isn’t a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal when you work out for four hours and right after what happened today.”
Sighing heavily, she stood and brushed by me into the living area. “Again, not a big deal. I’ve had years to grieve.”
Unconvinced, I followed her to the door as she slipped her feet into her boots and bent to lace
them up. “What were you like before?”
Her head tilted in confusion. “What?”
The picture I’d seen of her with her sisters didn’t strike me as the same person she was now. In that picture, there had been a light in her eyes I hadn’t seen since I’d known her.
“When you were still a cheerleader before everything happened, what was that girl like?”
“I have to get to work.”
“Paige, you can’t keep doing this.”
“Keep doing what?”
“Blocking it out.”
“I’m not blocking it out. I’m just trying to live my life.”
“By not feeling? It isn’t considered living life when you numb yourself to everything in it.”
She paused, one hand on the doorknob and the other hitched in the strap securing her backpack to one shoulder. “It’s considered living because I’m not dead.”
I couldn’t get through to her. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how.
“Don’t look so disappointed, Caleb. When was the last time you let yourself feel?”
I bit the inside of my lip because, now, I saw it—the blue in her eyes icing over. It wasn’t what I’d expected—at least, not when she looked at me. I hadn’t deceived her in any way, so why was she shutting me out? Wait. I know what this is. She’s pushing me away to prepare. But for what?
Did she know something she wasn’t telling me? What had she told that cop? What if she was setting me up?
“You’re right. Whatever. Just text me later, and I’ll pick you up.”
❧
While Paige was at work, I invited Calvin over. He was my best friend, and I’d been a shitty one to him. Not only was it time I came clean about all the shit I’d been keeping from him, but everything coming out of the dark was also becoming too much to swallow with my dwindling trust toward Paige. Even if she didn’t plan to intentionally hurt me, she could by talking to that cop, and if I got found out, Alex Connor would get away.
Handing Calvin a beer, I dropped down into the opposite corner of the couch.
Before taking a sip of my beer, I broke everything down for him. “Brad isn’t my real brother, and Alex isn’t our real father. I don’t know who my parents are, and neither does Paige. But the Sawyers, who Paige grew up with, are supposedly my family. They were all killed, and Paige was told the Sawyers, Leanne and David, had kidnapped her, which she doesn’t believe, but right now, it’s the only hope we have that she and I aren’t related. If the Sawyers were her parents...” I shook my head, feeling the food I’d had an hour ago rise in my throat. “We could be siblings.”
Calvin sat with his eyes bulging and eyebrows reaching up to his hairline. A minute went by before he muttered, “Holy shit.” After another full minute, he said, “Fuck, dude.”
Saying all of it out loud was like hearing it again for the first time in my hotel suite. Now, I couldn’t even stomach my beer.
Back in denial, though I’d never actually left, I realized that the only way Paige and I had managed the week was because we’d both blocked it out. I’d been accusing her when I was just as guilty. I didn’t deal with situations. I buried them; otherwise, I would have been insane with the amount of shit I had to come to terms with. In my everyday life, I couldn’t glance at bulletin boards with the slight chance they might feature a missing person I’d seen. I couldn’t even watch the news. The less I knew, the better. But, in this case, I needed to know everything. In the back of my mind, it was why I didn’t mind her reaching out to a cop; they had information we wouldn’t be able to get our hands on, and we needed every help we could get right now.
“It isn’t possible,” Calvin reasoned. “The two of you look like complete opposites. I mean, she’s blonde.”
“Yeah, the Sawyers had blonde hair and blue eyes, but if I had a different father, I could have gotten more of his genes instead.” I thought about that for a second. “Or mother. She did say it was her father’s side of the family who played instruments. So I would most likely be related to David Sawyer.”
Setting my beer on the floor, I stood and lifted the top to the leather ottoman. The only things inside were the pictures Paige had allowed me to hold on to. I handed them to Calvin. “These are pictures of them.”
I watched Calvin examine the pictures, one by one. “Who’s this?” he asked, turning a picture to me.
“She said it used to be her best friend, Mackenzie.”
“She looks familiar. Hmm.” He squinted at the picture a few more seconds before passing it to the back of the others. Studying the current one before him longer than the others, he said, “Paige doesn’t look like them.”
“Why?” I asked, grabbing my beer.
I’d studied the picture a lot while Paige was at the gym, and I’d thought the same, but I’d blamed it on my mind for finding reasons to fix this. But, since Calvin had also noticed, he was watering the seed of hope I’d been holding on to.
“The shape of Paige’s eyes is rounder, her nose smaller.” Calvin sighed and handed me the pictures. “I don’t know. She just stands out in a different way than her sisters.”
Staring at the picture again, I reclined, and placing my feet on the ottoman, I nursed my beer.
“So, that’s why you two played the whole friend thing at the bar,” Calvin stated rather than asked. “Why didn’t you tell me you were adopted?”
“It wasn’t important, and by the time I’d thought about saying something, it had been years. So, I forgot about it until recently.” Leaning forward, I set the pictures on the ottoman. I guessed I could use an end table. “How’s everything at home?”
“Better now. I’ve used the extra money to help my mom catch up on the mortgage.”
Calvin still lived with his mother and sister in a condo, but he used to live close to Alex Connor’s house, which was how we’d ended up at the same public school at one point.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. The only problem is that some punk kid from my sister’s school keeps texting her, and I want to find the little prick and castrate him.”
“We could find him and scare the shit out of him,” I suggested.
I only saw Calvin’s family a couple of times a year, but his mom and little sister meant everything to him, which meant I would be there for them when necessary.
“I thought about that, but then I also thought about if the little punk talked back to me. I’d seriously slap the shit out of him before realizing it.”
“True.” I chuckled. “Do you know what they talk about?”
“Nah. I didn’t want to invade her privacy, and Mom doesn’t care. She just thinks they’re harmless teenagers. Can you believe that shit?” Calvin stood and walked toward the kitchen.
“I think you should find out what kind of messages they’re sending to each other. With her dad not around and her still being underage, it’s easier for her to be influenced by the wrong people. The wrong kind of attention, you know?”
“Yeah, I will, but I’m still going to look for that kid. I’m almost sure she’s been lying about who she’s been hanging out with this summer.” Calvin’s voice lowered. “And God help me if that’s the case.” His voice rose again as he asked from the fridge, “Do you need another beer?”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.” Logging on to the mobile website for the security cameras in Alex Connor’s office, I watched.
“So, what’s your game plan with Paige? I mean, you know Connor and his men won’t stop going after her. What are you going to do?”
With a slight shake of my head, I said, “Whatever it takes. I want to be freed from their clutches as much as I want her to be safe.”
“Shit, why don’t you just leave the country? I’m sure she’d be down if she’s been running for this long.”
“Running will only make things worse. Running would have me added to the Most Wanted list, courtesy of Alex Connor.” I inhaled. If that happened, I would never be able to perform in public again or
be free again. Come to think of it, I’d never been free. I had been in prison my whole life.
Obedient to the instructions of one man. Alex Connor.
“She doesn’t want to run anymore,” I added. “And, if I’ve learned anything about her in these past few weeks, it’s that she’s gearing up for a fight, and that scares the shit out of me.” My jaw tightened. “She’s hardheaded, and whatever she’s planning, we won’t be able to stop her.”
“Sounds like you’re looking for the same outcome as her, so why would you want to stop her?”
“Because she has no idea whom she’s up against, and I need her to be safe.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Paige
“Madelyn, this is Sergeant Bailey. Can you meet me sometime today?”
“Yeah, sure. What time?”
It was ten in the morning, and I’d been lounging on the couch, reading an e-book I had downloaded to my phone. With summer semester out of the way and it being a few weeks until fall semester began, I was a lost cause. I’d already worked out this morning, and it was still a few hours before I had to go in for work.
Sitting up, I picked up my bottle of water from the floor and drank.
“Will 1:00 p.m. work for you?”
What the heck? Did she find something? I want to know now. I can’t wait for—removing the phone from my ear, I looked at the time again—three hours. What am I supposed to do until then?
I was way too curious to go back to reading now.
“Can we discuss it over the phone?”
“Unfortunately, I cannot risk that,” Sergeant Bailey said. “Can we meet at that same coffee shop at one, or will that not work for you?”
Inhaling, I sighed, “Yes, that’s fine.”
As I got off the phone, I started to type Caleb a text and then thought better of it. This information was too sensitive. What if Brad was around him and saw the message? No one could find out what I was up to. It would ruin everything before I even got to the best part. Revenge. I mean, justice.
Caleb picked up on the second ring as I paced over to the window and looked out. It was sunny outside, but according to the weather forecast, rain was expected later on, making me wonder if I would be facing a storm on my way to see Bailey.
