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Chapter 31
The FBI puts me up in a vacant condo, but the news vans still find me. They set up on my block every morning for two weeks before giving up. Everywhere I go, reporters give chase. I don’t take it personally.
My cell will ring endlessly if I leave it on, so I use burners. I’ve had to memorize phone numbers for the first time since I was a kid. Whenever I go anywhere, a motorcade escorts me.
Most days I stay home, talking to investigators or lawyers for hours via the web. It’s exhausting.
I don’t get to really relax until nearly a month has gone by, and the FBI clears my friends of any wrongdoing, and allows them to visit.
I’m already crying when I open the door for John. I hug him tightly, picking up a tobacco reek in his clothes.
“You started smoking cigarettes again?” I ask, though I don’t know why. He’s been cut out of my life for months, forced to watch from the sidelines as I was sucked into a vortex of chaos, and that’s the first thing I think to say to him? What the fuck is wrong with me?
“I’ll quit them again, I promise,” he says, rubbing my back. When he lets me go, his eyes glisten. “Kate, I wanted to help you. No one would let me. The people around you said you didn’t want to see me. They threatened to fire me if I tried to get close. I tried to find out why you were doing what you were doing — your guards, your producers — they shut me out. Told me to stay away or you’d file a restraining order. I tried reaching out to Brendan, and he said the same thing.”
I shake my head, jaw hanging open. Tears drip down to the floor.
“I’m so sorry, John. I had no choice. I had to keep you away, for your own good. It killed me, but if anything happened to you… I knew you wanted to help. I never doubted it.”
He nods, pulling me into another hug.
“When they told me about the Masters and Anton Ford and everything, it all made sense. Anton’s lucky to be dead, because I would have ripped his head off for what he did.”
Smiling, I let out a throaty laugh.
“I would have enjoyed seeing that.”
The elevator doors open behind us, and Brendan steps out carrying two massive bags of Thai food.
“Come in,” I say to John. “We’ll tell you everything, from the beginning.”
It’s a good thing Brendan brought a feast. This could take a while.
—
“Tell me about your week,” says Dr. Kerri Davis. “What’s new?”
It’s been six months since I started seeing her. I have little more to say. She’s heard every single detail from the day of my abduction until the day Anton Ford died. She’s heard the stuff that came before: about my famous father, my problematic early behavior and my lifelong tendency toward recklessness. By now she knows me pretty well, but I’d rather be talking to Brendan or John. They don’t get paid to listen and they’re not sharing our conversations with the authorities.
Not that I have a choice. A judge mandated that I see her twice a week as a condition of my release. Apparently she’s dealt with unique cases in the past. They say she can help me. So far, I guess I can’t complain. She’s a good listener, and she doesn’t question my love for Ingram. She believes my side of the story.
“They finished fixing my apartment,” I say. “I moved in a few days ago. So that’s new. And old, I guess. You know what I mean.”
“What was that like, being back there?” Davis asks.
“It was nice.”
I debated getting a new apartment. Some questioned the idea of returning to a place that was my prison for months. They made a good point, but this was my home before it was my prison, and I wasn’t going to let Anton take it from me. The FBI took most of the stuff that made it a prison anyway, from the surveillance equipment to the cage machinery. I hired a crew to do the rest, restoring it to the old schematics and decor.
“It wasn’t unsettling, or scary?”
“Not really. No one’s coming after me. I don’t have to worry about myself anymore. If anything, it was satisfying.”
“Oh?”
I nod.
“I’d like to think of how angry Anton would be, seeing me sleep in my own bed, free of him. I remember the Masters can’t hurt me.”
