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“Arcane was sent by someone who knows my grandfather…”
“Everything’s been fine. Everything’s been wonderful. Peter could fuck whoever he wanted, but so could I.” She paused now, looking at me again. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “That was, until your last essay to get that Phoenix Tech scholarship for graduate school. You talked about the father you never had, the lie your mother told you.”
I wrote that essay so long ago.
Go, get Kash.
That thought nagged at me, speaking up in the back of my mind.
It was a personal piece. We had to include our mentors growing up, along with the prospects of a proposed graduate project. The best of the best didn’t have to go to school, not in this career path, but Chrissy pushed school. She wanted a degree by my name, said education was the best way to cement your future. She didn’t understand the technology world, but as long as I could continue going to school with those scholarships, I went. I went for her, and I had learned it was my real father who had paved the way.
And that essay.
I should get Kash. It was more insistent now.
I talked about the father Chrissy told me about, the one who had fought for our country and died in an attack. She gave me names and credentials, and she had friends from the VFW who helped along her lie. She talked about my father and I poured all of that into that essay, saying I wanted to help our country but in a different way. I wanted to use the skills I had to continue his work, and I was just now remembering it.
My voice was so small. “Peter read that essay?”
“Quinn knows Kash’s family…”
“Read it?” She snorted. “He was infuriated by it. It pissed him off that he’d been replaced by a military hero. Your father isn’t a perfect man. He has faults, but he does have good qualities, and stepping back, respecting your mother’s wishes so you could have a normal and safe life, was hard for him. I had to respect him for it. He was trying, but he has an ego. He has pride, and learning how you were, that you were being guided by a memory of a lie, it set something off in him. He started talking more and more about that time with your mother. He started watching you more. He’d always kept tabs, but it was more. He asked Kash to personally take an interest, and once Kash started, he became captivated. I knew we were headed down a bad path.”
Kash?
“Arcane was sent by someone who knows my grandfather…”
He’d been watching me that whole time?
I looked over to where he was, but he wasn’t there. An alarm sliced through me, but it wasn’t enough. Kash wouldn’t have stepped away, not completely. He would have worried about me, made sure I was fine.
But he wasn’t there. In fact, the entire group wasn’t there. They were gone.
I looked around, now seeing we were almost completely alone.
“Quinn knows Kash’s family…”
I was being plagued. Haunted.
What was happening?
“Drew Bonham is right now causing a scene at the front gate.”
Drew?
What?
I was confused, but then she kept going. “Victoria has probably pulled Kash into a bedroom. I’ve no doubt she’s trying to seduce him. No one is here to save you. No one is here to rescue you. At this moment, Drew is doing what he was told to do. So while you think you’re safe because everyone is around, they’re not.” She was so cold, but smug at the same time. “They’re all running, at this very moment, in the opposite direction. Away from you. And you, my dear, are completely alone.”
Drew …
His name was familiar …
Get Kash now!
Bonham.
Thoughts and pieces of the puzzle were fitting, forming— clicking.
Drew Bonham. The husband. Matthew.
The guy who tried to poison Matt, whose wife was sleeping with Matt—was helping Quinn now?
I was going to be sick.
Cold sweat dripped down my back.
“Arcane was sent by someone who knows my grandfather…”
“Quinn knows Kash’s family…”
The voices. The memories. Round and round.
“My father was indebted to Calhoun…”
Round.
Again.
And then, nothing.
Calm.
Silence.
I knew.
I knew who hired the kidnappers.
Her smile was evil, her words soft. “You’re a very stupid little girl, aren’t you?”
It was too late to get Kash.
FIFTY-FIVE
Quinn’s words were cutting, but she was smiling, speaking them almost lovingly, and she reached over, resting her hand on my arm. Then she grabbed me in a tight grip and reached forward, pressing something into my side.
I felt a sharp pain before jerking away. “What—”
She grabbed for me again, jerking me to her and hissing under her breath, “You are a problem. He was supposed to poison you that night, not stupid Matthew. He wasn’t supposed to have found out his wife was fucking my stepson. I mean, my God, why would he care? He was fucking me, but he wasn’t the only one.
