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“No, I’m not working! It’s fucking–” fumbling as he read the time “--midnight!”
I hung up without explaining, a cold vise squeezing around my insides. Where the hell was Willow? Feeling like I’d been unwittingly cast in a bad melodrama, I began calling hospitals. Not one of them had a Willow Laurier. At two am, I drove to her place. I couldn’t get inside, but her car wasn’t there and her window wasn’t lit up. At three am, running on frayed nerves, I called the morgues. After each one, I felt sick relief, and then the band around my chest tightened again as I dialed the next number. When she wasn’t in any of them, I was left with a numb, creeping exhaustion mixed with confusion and trepidation. Something was wrong. I couldn’t figure out what, butsomethingwas wrong.
I fell asleep in the living room. A shitty, half sleep, half listening for her to come through the front door. I woke up too early and called the hospitals again. I couldn’t bring myself to call the morgues. Instead, I called Landon. He’d had to track down a few people in his time. If anyone short of the police could do it, it was him.
He called me back half an hour later. “Willow Laurier doesn’t exist.”
My eyes felt like they’d been scrubbed with sandpaper, and the grit had gotten into my brain. I sat, staring at the phone without seeing it, without comprehending. “Yes, she does,” I said, feeling insane. “She’s been working with Miller for the last four months. She’s been withmeevery night for the last three. Dana met her. I have pictures–”
“I’m sure thegirlexists,” Landon cut in before I could send him proof. “But the name is wrong.”
“I didn’t get her name wrong,” I snapped.
A beat, and then Landon’s voice came down the line, heavy and meaningful. “I didn’t say you did.”
It took me a minute to figure out exactly what he was saying. And then it was so absurd that I nearly laughed. “She didn’t give me a fake name.”
Silence filled the line. Landon wasn’t going to say she had, but he wasn’t going to say she hadn’t. He was just going to let it sit out there.
“Fuck.” I scrubbed a hand over my face, fighting off all the poisonous darts of doubt. They landed anyway.
She didn’t want you to meet anyone.
She didn’t want to go out in public together.
All those times you thought she was hiding something…. she was.
“Fuck,” I said, quieter this time. I was losing the fight.
Landon said he’d look harder and see if he could find some answers. I sat on the couch in the living room, staring out at the small table on the terrace where we’d eaten so many meals. The candle was low in its waxy sheath now. The ocean beyond was shimmering like an endless sheet of blue and green diamond chips, stretching out toward the morning sky.
My phone lit up. Willow had finally texted me back. She was fine. She’d explain everything later. The vise around my guts eased, but it didn’t release entirely. Thank God she was alive. Thank God she was apparently fine. But where the hell was she, and why had she texted instead of called?
I called her, but it went to voicemail.
I was still staring at the phone in my hand, wondering what the hell was going on, when it lit up again. It wasn’t Willow’s name on the Caller ID though–it was Fletcher’s.
Wondering if I was still asleep, in some sort of fever dream, I answered.
“Fletch.”
“Julian, you motherfucker. You almost got me.” His laugh was too big and too loud for 8:30 in the morning.
“Fletcher, I don’t have time for this.” I dug my thumb and forefinger into my eye sockets, trying to displace the grit. “Tell me what the fuck you want so I can tell you to fuck off.”
His voice took an affected, offended tone. “I was calling to thank you.”
The hell he was. I didn’t know what this game was, but I knew I couldn’t play. Not right now. “You’re welcome. Now fuck off.” My finger was hovering over the End Call button when he spoke next.
“I wanted to thank you for this fun game we’ve been playing. You made it quite a challenge. I almost respect you for it.” His tone was jovial, but there was menace underneath. Dark and oily, oozing out between the syllables.
I tightened my grip on the phone. “What game?”
Now he managed to sound both smug and surprised. The man was definitely on the right side of the camera. “For the rights toAll the Dying Light.”
“Fletcher, for fuck’s sake, just tell me what you’re talking about,” I said, my patience snapping.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been enjoying it, but I think it’s time we called a truce.”
