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It’s easy to slip out unnoticed with all the bodies moving around. I use my spare keys to the SUV and pull away from the building. I can’t remember the last time I visited the house. I can’t imagine the significance. Who would know about the tree? Who would care?
Is Teagan there? Waiting for me, terrified, hating me for leaving her vulnerable? I need her to make it through this. I need the chance to tell her how wrong I was. I jumped to conclusions and sacrificed her in the process. She must have been so hurt and confused while I sat back and tried to convince myself I was doing the right thing.
I turn off my headlights once I’ve turned onto the old street. Now is not the time for memories to come knocking, but there’s no blocking them out as I roll slowly past houses that used to be as familiar to me as my own. It was a long time ago. Another life. It’s unreal how long a man can go without ever thinking about certain things, yet those locked-up memories can still feel as fresh and vivid as if they were made yesterday.
My breath catches once I recognize the old house up ahead. Rather than driving all the way to the front curb, I park a few houses down and kill the engine. There isn’t a moment to lose, but I can’t make the mistake of rushing headlong into this, either.
The two-story house is dark. Empty-looking. The windows are blank eyes staring out at me. Judging. Observing what’s to come while an evening breeze makes the tree branches sway and sends a chill up my spine once I’ve stepped out of the car.
Everything looks clear so far. There are no threats lurking in the shadows between the amber streetlights. Yet behind the old privacy fence separating the property from the one beside it, the branches of the oak tree stretch up past the roof. It’s grown. Life has moved on.
Still, nothing seems out of the ordinary as I walk along the fence, peering through the thin gaps in the planks. A three-quarter moon spills silver light on the yard and the woods beyond it, but I can’t get a clear look. Not yet.
Not until I round the corner and dart across the lawn to press myself against the side of the house, almost hugging the wall, crouching to pass under the windows.
Finally, I reach the rear of the house, crouched in the darkness and straining my eyes to get a better look at the limp girl tied to the thick tree trunk not fifty feet away. Moonlight paints her dark hair platinum and makes her pale skin glow like a pearl. The breeze blows, and she shivers—my heart can beat now. I can breathe. She’s alive.
And tied, gagged, and under the control of… who?
The impulse to run to her is almost too much to fight. All I can do is remind myself what will happen if I do it before I have an idea of the situation. I scan the area, watching and listening. No flash of moonlight off the steel of a rifle. No footsteps. No breathing once I hold my own.
No sound at all, in fact, until a voice floats my way.
“It’s about time. I thought you forgot.”
This isn’t happening. I can’t hear that voice because it belongs to someone I know is dead.
Someone who’s emerging from the woods beyond the yard. I saw her at the gala. Somehow, I knew it was her, even when it shouldn’t have been possible.
This has to be a nightmare. A cruel and twisted dream. I’m going to wake up any moment now. Only I’m not.
“Mom?” I barely recognize my own voice. The sound is more fitting for a small, frightened boy than a grown man.
I take a step toward her, needing to get closer, yearning to touch her just to make sure she is real. As I move, four men step out from the forest edge, guns drawn and pointing at me.
“I thought you were…” Memories of standing in front of her grave, placing flowers on the headstones as Natalie cried by my side assault me.
“Dead?” She finishes my sentence. “Sometimes I wish I was, but unfortunately, I have to live with the pain you’ve caused every day.”
I’m so fucking confused. I have no idea what she means by that or how we got here. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“Cut the shit, Mason!” She suddenly yells, an unhinged tone in her voice. Her hands ball into fists, and her body shakes with anger. “I know what you did! I know about Operation Black Orchid. I know it was your fault!”
“Mom.” Her name falls off my lips like a desperate prayer, pleading with her to explain what’s going on.
