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“He’s got Chloe and Elizabeth in the car!” Ravinia held her hands over her eyes and then suddenly yanked them away, her sea-green eyes distended wide with shock. “It’s not him. It’s her. Nadia Vandell!”
Chapter 34
In the backseat, Chloe had gone silent and Elizabeth tried to see her in the rearview mirror.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Nadia demanded, the barrel of the gun pressed tightly into the side of Elizabeth’s rib cage.
“Chloe, you okay?” Elizabeth asked.
They’d been driving for about five minutes, heading west. Nadia seemed to have a destination in mind, but she wasn’t sharing it with Elizabeth. She just wanted her to drive.
Chloe’s eyes met hers and she shook her head slowly. “Where are we going?” she asked in a small voice.
Nadia glanced back for a brief instant. “Oh, it’s somewhere your mom knows, back when our souls were still joined.”
Elizabeth said carefully, “I don’t remember it.”
“That’s because you broke everything,” Nadia suddenly hissed at her, her face contorted. “Why did you do that? Why?”
Elizabeth stayed quiet, hoping Nadia wouldn’t scare Chloe any worse than she already had, and it was no good trying to reason with her. She was past reasoning. When her cell phone had rung, Nadia had snatched it out of Elizabeth’s purse, read the name, and shrieked in fury before tossing it out the window.
Elizabeth answered her in a voice infused with fear. “I shouldn’t have broken it.” She hoped she sounded regretful.
“You got that right, bitch.” Nadia glowered, unappeased. “Your friends the Sorensons? You showed them all kinds of houses, but there was only one on the ocean with a spectacular view.”
Staffordshire. “The house in Corona del Mar.”
“Still for sale. Your friends couldn’t afford it, but it’s the best of what you showed them. The best. You remember the best, Elizabeth?” Nadia twisted the barrel into Elizabeth’s side.
“I can’t drive straight when you do that,” Elizabeth said, and it was true.
“Well, fucking figure it out!” Nadia yelled.
They drove in silence for a while, then she said, “You don’t remember me.”
Is this a trick? “Um . . . no . . .”
“Good old Van Buren High. I was in the class below you.”
Elizabeth couldn’t think, didn’t know how to answer her. A line of sweat was running down her back.
“I could feel you even then. I thought you felt me, too.”
Elizabeth had no good answer to that. No, she hadn’t felt Nadia, nor did she remember her as a school classmate, but she sensed if she admitted as much that it wouldn’t go over too well.
“You think this is all coincidence? That I happened to join the Sisterhood, happened to become part of your Moms Group
even though I don’t have a child? I’ve followed you, Elizabeth. With my heart and soul. We’re the same, you and I. We have abilities. You’re amazing.” There was awe in her voice. “But I had to find a reason to get close to you. Vivian’s such a sap. She wanted to help me get over my miscarriages and begged me to join the Moms group.”
Elizabeth shot another glance back to Chloe, who’d closed her eyes and appeared to be in a trance.
“Don’t look at her,” Nadia snapped, and Elizabeth focused her eyes on the road ahead of her. They’d reached the street that led to the Staffords’ house . . . the Staffords couldn’t help her as they were still outside the United States.
“I’ve loved you a long time, but you don’t love me.” Nadia said it almost conversationally, as if she were really just rolling that idea around. “I wanted us to go to Mexico together. I like it there, particularly Rosarito Beach.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “You were at the Tres Brisas Hotel.”
“I saw Court with Whitney Bellhard. He was such a bastard to you. Why did you marry him?”
