Calder kept still—and kept me still—waiting for Dr. Julia to leave, but instead, her head turned as Matthew appeared from the shadows, his voice haunting.
“You deserve better, Julia.”
“Don’t start with me, Matthew,” she begged, more tired than anything. “Not tonight.”
“Tell me what I can do.”
“Just find him, Matthew. Just find him,” she asked and then turned and walked away.
Who was “him”?
Calder released me, and I looked up at him in horror. By now, they had to have realized we’d given them fake names and hadn’t left our IDs in our locker.Were they looking for us? Was she talking about Calder?
The question—like so many others—plagued me during the silent trek back to our campsite.
Chapter 31
Lara
“Adam Eden is James Braun,” Calder said without skipping a beat as soon as we were back at our campsite.
“I can’t believe it,” I murmured, taking the fresh pouch of water and a protein bar he offered me; there were no Michelin stars out here, only a growing galaxy of real ones. “I thought maybe I misheard her ...”
“You didn’t,” he grunted. “I recognized him from the picture Callum found of Braun from his law firm. Older now. Longer hair. But the same person, no question.”
That was why he’d flinched when Eden appeared ... and not when Dr. Julia called him James.
As much of a revelation as it was, it paled in comparison to hearing them talk about my sister.
“She’s here,” I murmured, almost in a daze, watching him finish a message on his phone; I assumed to Callum, confirming that Braun and Eden were the same.
My tongue turned to lead, and dread coiled like a snake about to strike in my stomach.Rachel was here. We’d found her.
What had they done?
“I just can’t believe ...” That was it. That was the whole statement. I couldn’t believe. It was somehow exactly what I’d beenexpecting but nothing I could’ve prepared for.Like watching Ian flatline.“We can’t—I can’t let them—” I broke off, tearing at the laces on my boots. My stomach turned as I recalled what he’d said about her, about them.
“I know,” came Calder’s low reply as he crouched in front of me, framing his hands on the sides of my knees. “We won’t.”
Even his promise couldn’t loosen the grip of fear around my throat.
“What are we going to do?” I heard myself whisper. I wasn’t just ceding to his direction anymore—I was begging for it.
“We’re going to get Rachel out of there,” he said. “But first, you’re going to eat.”
I was too ... too many things to feel hungry. Even the bar in my hand looked like more than I could stomach, but I opened it and began to eat anyway.
Satisfied that I wasn’t going to stress-starve myself, Calder returned to his meticulous process of creating our campfire. Three strikes of his flint on the pile of deadwood and a flame ebbed to life.
“Do you think they’re holding her in that building without the windows?”
“No. That was for food and storage. There were additional units for climate control on the back of the building,” he replied.
My mouth rounded, drawing his brief but hot attention. “Where do you think she is? How are we going to find her before tomorrow?”
I’d been too focused on the group on the lawn—looking for Rachel and then watching the horror show of that man manipulating all those women—to look at anything else.
Sliding open his phone, Calder pulled up the aerial image again and zoomed in. “Here’s where we were. I think Rachel is in this building.” He held it in front of me and pointed to the building right behind the one we’d stopped at. “I think that’s where all the women stay.”
