by Chris Mooney
“And you.”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe,” Sebastian said, some steel finding his voice. “You got engaged pretty quickly.”
“I did.”
“Accident or planned?”
“A bit of both. I met Charles when I was out with a few of my girlfriends. Charles was nice. A gentleman. He was stable, and he had a good job, and he was and still is a very kind man. And when he took an interest in me, I felt . . . it was like I had an opportunity to have a huge burden lifted from me. I wouldn’t have to raise the baby alone. We wouldn’t be poor. I felt relieved—and grateful. I don’t regret my choice.”
That was the thing he loved the most—and hated the most—about Ava, her ability to never look back, because the past was the past, and the future was the future, and there was no point in discussing either, because the only thing life guaranteed you was the present.
“Charles,” Sebastian said. “He knows Grace isn’t his.”
Ava nodded.
“But he doesn’t know about me,” Sebastian said.
“No. I never told him who the father was. I wanted to keep that— I know this isn’t going to make sense, and I don’t expect you to believe me, but not telling him—not telling anyone—that was my way of holding on to you. To keep a part of you to myself.” Ava swallowed. Rubbed at her face, swallowed again. “I’m not doing a good job explaining this.”
“Grace?” Sebastian asked, his voice pinched tight. “Does she know the truth?”
Sebastian saw her pained look and knew the answer.
He said, “And you’re telling me this now . . . why? To give me an incentive to give you money to help find her, in case I turned you down?”
Ava shot him a look that said he was above such pettiness.
She said, “You mentioned earlier that the police focus their investigations on the families. They’re going to find out Charlie isn’t Grace’s biological father. They’re going to ask me questions. If I tell them about you, they’re going to come here and ask you questions. Given your . . . background, they might make your life a living hell. That didn’t seem fair, or right. And you deserved to hear the truth from me, not them. That’s why I came. To tell you the truth. I don’t want your money.”
“So,” Sebastian said, his gaze flicking to the driveway, to Agent Roosevelt, “the FBI doesn’t know.”
“No one does.”
“Then what’s he doing here?”
“He’s driving me,” Ava said. “Charles and I came up with a list of people who might be able to help with the ransom.”
“And how are you going to explain me?”
“I don’t know. An old friend, maybe. But I felt it was important to come here—and I couldn’t do it on my own. They insist on driving us everywhere.”
Sebastian exhaled as he leaned forward in his seat and, elbows propped on his knees, rubbed his face with his hands.
“A daughter,” he mumbled into his palms.
“We all make mistakes when we’re young,” Ava said. “Some mistakes you can’t come back from when you’re young and scared—and I was terrified, Sebastian. I was pregnant, and you were in prison. I wanted to give my baby a good life, not the one you and I had. And I did. I made that decision, and—”
“Stop. Just . . . stop.”
She did. They sat in silence, Sebastian trying to wrap his mind around everything she’d said. In the midst of the confusion and the rising anger and loss and grief and everything else he was feeling, a small but powerful voice kept whispering to him, You have a daughter. With Ava.
Grace. Her name was Grace.
A daughter with Ava. Mother, father, daughter. A family. The life he’d wanted but not the life he had. His real life consisted of a psycho quasi stepson who had tried to kill him and was, without question, going to try to do it again. Then he would turn around and take everything he had worked and sacrificed for and burn it to the ground.
“Please,” Ava said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“The kidnappers.”
“They called Charles the following morning, using some device or piece of software that changes their voice. Don’t know if it was a man or woman. The person said they had Grace and they wanted twenty million dollars in unmarked bills, some other things.”
“When did they ask for delivery?”
“They haven’t given an exact time yet. They said they would be in contact.”
“How much do you need?”
“Charles is in the process of liquidating his portfolio. That’ll give us, by the end of the business day tomorrow, roughly six million, which leaves us fourteen million to—”
“You’ll have it.”
“Sebastian,” she began.
“It’s done. I’ll have the money in a couple of hours. All I ask is two things. First, when we bring Grace home—and we will—I want to get to know her.”
“You can take that as a given.”
“Second, I would rather not invite the police into my life at this point.”
“I understand.”
No, I don’t think you do, he added privately. The police would start poking around, asking questions not only of him but of the people around him, and that would lead them to wanting to talk to Frank, who was “on vacation,” and to Paul, who was hiding. All a cop needed was to catch the slightest whiff that something was off, and Sebastian would have every aspect of his life put under a microscope.
“Don’t tell them yet that I’m going to give you the money,” Sebastian said. “I need to think about how I can do it without it coming back to me. Have someone else do it.”
Ava nodded. “They want us to take a polygraph. The FBI. To rule us out as suspects.”
“They want you to, or they asked you to?”
“Asked. Said it’s normal procedure—I get that—but still, it makes me nervous. What if they start asking questions about Grace’s biological father?”
“Has Charles told them he isn’t the biological father?”
“No.”
“Then keep it that way.” Suddenly Sebastian found himself on his feet. “I need to get to work on this. How many other people are on your list to get money?”
“Four more. Maybe five.”
“Go speak to them. Better to have as much money available as possible when the time comes. Sometimes banks screw up.”
Sebastian felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, reached for it. A text, from Ron: candice jackson flying to la later tonight.
Candice Jackson? Then Sebastian remembered: Paul’s last girlfriend. Ron had wanted to talk with her for a while.
“I need to take this,” Sebastian said. “How can I get in touch with you?”
“I wrote down my number for you.” Ava reached into her pocket, came back with a scrap of paper. He took it, and she placed her hands against his chest, leaned up, and kissed him on the lips—not a quick peck, and not the long, sultry kiss of two people madly in lust, but something more mature, more permanent. It was a kiss that said, You’re still in my heart. It said, I still love you. He inhaled the smell of her skin and hair, and in that moment, he felt like the before Sebastian, the original version, the boy who believed he was in possession of the kind of once-in-a-lifetime love that held the power to shape his destiny any way he wanted.
CHAPTER 35
ELLIE STOOD IN the kitchen, watching Sebastian and the woman he had called Ava through the windows above the sink. Ellie had no idea what they were discussing, even though she had cracked open the windows; Sebastian and Ava sat too far away, at the table on the other side of the pool, the two of them huddled together and speaking in the sort of intimate, hushed tones of a husband and wife confronting the sort of life horrors every human being feared but few ever faced.
Whatever their conversation was about, it involved
the FBI. The guy lingering near the top of the driveway, by the basketball hoop, was a federal agent—he had that look and air about him. Ellie didn’t recognize him and wondered if he was one of Roland’s.
Why was the FBI here? Did the agent know what Sebastian really did for a living? Did Ava? If so, why would she bring a federal agent to Sebastian’s house? And why had the woman burst into gut-wrenching tears?
Ava kissed Sebastian. Not a “Nice to see you” peck but a kiss full of emotion—conflicting emotions, Ellie thought. Clearly, the woman had some sort of romantic feelings for him. Clearly, Ava—
“I didn’t know spying was in your job description.”
Ellie started, then turned, saw one of the security guards or computer geeks or whatever their title was standing at the island, grabbing a handful of grapes. There were two at the house. She didn’t know their names because they hadn’t introduced themselves. She knew they were watching everything she did.
“I work for you?” she asked politely.
He shook his head and popped a grape in his mouth.
“What I thought,” Ellie said. “So how about you go outside and play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself?”
He chuckled and winked at her as she turned back to the windows.
Ava was gone. Same with the federal agent. Why would the agent leave without speaking to Sebastian? Her gaze cut to him, pacing the backyard, his phone mashed against his ear, listening. She fetched the car keys, and when she was sure he wasn’t looking, she shut the windows and moved out of the kitchen, rubbing her shoulder. Pandora had healed the gunshot wound quite nicely—the scar was growing fainter by the day, and she no longer had to wear the arm sling—but she still had some muscle tightness there. Sebastian assured her it would disappear.
One thing she noticed about being on Pandora: all her senses were alive, as if they were on steroids. Her sense of smell was strong, intense, as was her sense of taste. No matter what she tasted, even something as ordinary as Starbucks coffee, something she had tasted hundreds if not thousands of times, it was as if she was experiencing it for the first time.
She could see why people wanted Pandora so badly. To feel this way day after day—it was easy to understand how people would turn a blind eye to the ethics. Still, she couldn’t help but remember that someone else’s blood was in her system—the blood of some young man or woman who had been kidnapped, forced to give up their blood.
Knowing this made her want to work even harder to find her brother.
Her phone rang. She fished it from her pocket. Max was calling her again. Max could wait. She opened the sliding glass door and entered the backyard. The cool morning breeze ruffled her hair and blew past her ears, but she heard Sebastian say, “Call me as soon as you get this.”
He pulled the phone away from his ear, read something on the screen, then made another call. He turned and saw Ellie standing on the other side of the pool.
Glared at her.
Ellie held up his car keys as if to explain her sudden presence. He pointed at the driveway. Ellie got moving, heard him say into the phone, “I got your message.” When she reached the gate, she heard him say, “I’m on my way.”
Ellie knew they weren’t heading to the real estate office today.
Sebastian confirmed that when he got into the car. “Wellness Center,” he said. “Head straight there.”
Meaning they weren’t going to play the whole change-cars-all-over-LA game today. Sometimes Sebastian ordered her to do that to prevent Paul or his people, whoever they were, from following him. The Wellness Center was the only place she went with Sebastian. He had conversations with someone there—Maya Dawson, she assumed, who she also assumed was the doctor who had treated her gunshot wound and administered Pandora. Sebastian always made her stay in the car.
She kept wondering about his carriers. Where were they? Who was taking care of them? Clearly Sebastian wasn’t the one doing it. She had overheard him saying that all blood operations had been shut down. Okay, but someone had to be taking care of his carriers.
And when was he going to bring her closer to him, trust her with his secrets? With Frank dead, she had hoped she could fill his absence. She had hoped Sebastian would have brought her into the fold by now.
Be patient, she reminded herself. Keep looking for openings to show him you’re someone he can trust.
It was a Sunday, so traffic was reasonable. Sebastian stared out the windshield. When he wasn’t rubbing his finger vigorously over his pursed lips, he was tapping his phone against his leg.
The phone, she knew, was a burner. She also knew he kept changing his burners on a daily basis. Ellie watched everything like a hawk, committing everything to memory, and shared it with Max when they got together, which wasn’t all that often now that she was pretty much glued to Sebastian.
“The car is safe,” he said. “He can’t get us while we’re in here.”
He had told her about how he had taken the Jaguar back to a company that outfitted cars with various security measures for celebrities and politicians—had the bulletproof glass replaced and added hidden armor that could withstand a bomb blast, tires that wouldn’t deflate for several miles if punctured by a bullet.
“Everything okay?” Ellie asked.
Sebastian gritted his teeth as he sucked in air, straightening in his seat.
Ellie held up a hand and cut him off from speaking. “I’m not trying to pry,” she said, her voice confident because she felt confident, from sunrise to sunset, thanks to Pandora. “I’m asking because I saw what happened in the driveway, with the woman who visited you, and it looked like it shook you. What can I do to help?”
He seemed to be mulling over the question. Or maybe he didn’t want to talk; she couldn’t tell. He was tough to read—much tougher, Ellie thought, than Frank. Sebastian was more emotionally available, as a therapist would say, and more willing to talk. But sometimes he would retreat behind a wall, his words clipped and cold, like now.
Sebastian’s features relaxed. She got the sense that he was ready to let her in a bit—all she needed was an inch in order to get to work on him—when her phone rang. She didn’t answer it. She knew Max was calling, and Sebastian did, too; her phone, automatically synced with the Jaguar’s system via Bluetooth, displayed Max’s name on the dashboard console’s screen.
“Go ahead,” Sebastian said, distracted. “Answer it.”
“I can call him—”
“No, it’s fine.”
Ellie had learned to read the tone and rhythms in his speech. His tone said, Do it. Don’t argue with me.
It was against the law in California to speak on a phone while driving, except for hands-free calling. She took the call, and spoke before Max could say anything.
“I’m in the car, and I’m working,” Ellie said sharply. “Make it quick.”
Max knew all her calls were being monitored and possibly recorded. He played the role of the aggrieved boyfriend perfectly. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, sounding disappointed and miffed. “My friend Cody is coming into town, and I was hoping the three of us could get together, grab some dinner, and hang.”
Ellie’s heart surged in equal measures of joy and dread. Max was telling her he had arranged a call, maybe even a visit, with Cody. As much as she wanted to see him, she needed to stay on target, keep close to Sebastian.
The main reason for the call was that Roland wanted a status update. He wanted her to get together with Max and share information about the investigation. Ellie never spoke about operational matters on the phone with Max, only in person.
“When?”
“Tonight,” Max replied. “I know it’s short notice, and I know you’re incredibly busy, but it would really mean a lot to me. He really wants to meet you.”
Ellie didn’t get a chance to answer; Sebastian answered for her.
“Sh
e’ll be there.”
Ellie opened her mouth, about to protest, when he held up his hand to quiet her. Sebastian said, “What time?”
“I’m sorry,” Max said. “I didn’t know Faye was—”
“No apology necessary. In fact, I should be apologizing to you, having kept her so busy. What time do you need her?”
“I was thinking around seven? Eight? Does that work for you?”
“Seven it is,” Sebastian said. “I’ll make reservations for you at Belle me, in Chinatown. Fantastic French restaurant. Dinner, everything, is on me. Afterward, you and Faye can spend the night at the Four Seasons. In fact, make it two. I’m giving Faye the day off tomorrow. Enjoy.”
Max terminated the call. Ellie took in a deep breath.
“You’ve been working hard, doing a good job, and you deserve a break,” Sebastian said. “To live your life.”
Ellie didn’t want to be away from Sebastian—especially not now, given whatever was happening. “I’m thinking of breaking up with him,” she began.
“So go and have a nice dinner and sleep in, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
A lot could happen before then. “I’m more worried about Paul,” Ellie said.
“I’ll be fine.”
Another call came through, this one from Sebastian’s sixty-two-year-old secretary at the real estate office, Mary Jo. The woman called Ellie because Sebastian’s number kept changing.
Ellie answered the call, and Mary Jo’s cheery but raspy voice echoed over the speakers: “Paul called.”
Sebastian straightened in his seat, leaned closer to the console.
“It was so nice to speak to him,” Mary Jo said, clueless to the drama unfolding in the car. “How is he doing, by the way? I haven’t seen him in so long.”
“He’s doing fine,” Sebastian replied, his voice measured. “What did Paul want?”
