I blinked at her. “We need to find Jeremiah.”
“We will. But he didn’t come here alone. We’ll go somewhere safe, and call Jeremiah from there. Okay?” She tugged me toward the door. “We can’t stay here, Lennon. Hurry!”
Dazed, I let her lead me outside. We nearly tripped over Amos’s prone body and I let out a sharp shriek. “Is he dead?”
“Lennon!” Cecily snapped. “Do you want to get murdered? Let’s fuckinggo!”
“Wait.” I dropped to a squat and pressed my fingers to his pulse. “He’s alive. Just knocked out.”
Cecily looked around nervously. “They must have someone standing lookout close by. My van is right there. We’ll get in, lock the door, and call Jeremiah. Deal?”
I nodded.
“Then run!” She gave me a little shove, and we took off across the parking lot, gravel spraying behind us. Cecily beeped the fob and the side door rolled open. “Get in.”
I climbed in. This wasn’t just a van; it was a functioning living space. I crawled forward. Rope. Duct tape. A sheet. I frowned. That was weird. “What?—”
Strong arms grabbed me from behind. Before I could struggle, something zinged through my body, making my muscles convulse.
“What the hell kind of mess did you get yourself into this time?” a familiar female voice whispered in my ear. “I keep telling you, you have lousy taste in men.”
Pain bloomed in my temple, and then everything went dark.
38
JEREMIAH
“The good news is,Lennon only has four female subs,” Mateo said. “The bad news is that none of their names are familiar. We’ve got Allison Watts from Maine, Emery Ballston from Illinois, Dana Matthews from Texas, and Lisa DeWalt from Florida. None of them have any connection to Wyoming, as far as I can tell. I can keep digging, but we might have hit a dead end on Lennon’s subs.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Dammit. What kind of self-respecting stalker turns up his?—”
“Her,” Holly corrected.
“Hernose at having that kind of access? Lennon made herself available to subs three times a week, andyou’re telling me her stalker had no interest in that?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll keep digging.” Mateo spun his chair back to his computer. “Maybe I’m missing something.”
I pulled up the tracker app on my phone. Lennon was still in the kitchen. My breath came a little easier. “Maybe Ciaran sent us on a wild goose chase. He could be wrong. Maybe the stalker isn’t a woman and we’re wasting time focusing on the wrong thing.”
“He’s not wrong,” Holly said. “He’s never wrong.”
Mateo pushed up his glasses and squinted at the screen. “Everyone’s wrong sometime. But we haven’t ruled out this theory yet.”
I leaned over Mateo’s shoulder. “See if you can pull up their driver’s license. Maybe their faces will be familiar.”
“I already crosschecked their names with our guest records and former employee records. No hits. But I should be able to hack into the DMV and find their photo IDs. The Russians do it all the time. How hard can it be?”
Holly snorted. “Wow. I feel so safe.”
“No one’s information has been safe since 1999. You know that.”
Anxiety got the better of me. I pushed to my feet. “Can we fucking focus, please? We have a goddamn stalker to catch.Beforehe catches Lennon,” I added pointedly.
“She,” Holly corrected automatically.
I ground my molars together. Lennon’s stalker was a fucking woman? I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around it. It hadn’t even occurred to me. What else hadn’t occurred to me? What else had I missed?
I checked my phone again. Lennon was still in the kitchen. At least she was safe.
