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I know it’s Silas.
“Answer the door, Lindsay. Let Silas in.” I grab her and give her a swift, fierce kiss, then nudge her towards the door. She looks back at me, so many questions in her eyes, but she nods and does as she’s told.
Gentian appears in the hallway as I leave the bathroom. I realize I have no idea what Lindsay did with the pistol I gave her. Maybe she stored it in her bra?
Can’t think about her breasts right now.
No.
“Foster, you’re out of your mind.” He is seething. “You could do time in federal prison for all this.”
“It’s a fucking set-up, Gentian.”
“I know that. So what are you doing here? Get out. Go away. Hide. Leave the country, Drew.”
I look over his shoulder, down the dim hallway, to where Lindsay is searching through her purse. She finds a compact and checks herself in the mirror, lips red with kisses, hair a mess.
“No way. I can’t leave her.”
“You’ll leave her if you end up in prison, Drew.”
“I have enough contacts in the system to avoid that, Silas. I’m being framed. With enough time and investigation, we can out the truth and -- ”
“Listen to yourself.” His voice is low and hard. Silas has never talked to me in this tone before. Then again, I’m not his boss anymore. “I say this as a friend, Drew. You sound like some naive conspiracy theory nutcase on a cable channel series. You know damn well the people after you and Lindsay can make you disappear. Or worse. You need to hide.”
“If I hide, Lindsay comes with me.”
His hair curls as he runs an angry hand through the space over his left ear, then rubs his mouth. “Then you’ll have a manhunt unlike any other with you as the target. A presidential candidate’s daughter being kidnapped by her stalker ex-boyfriend?”
“That’s not -- ”
“That is exactly how the press will spin this. Senator Bosworth, too. The whole damn machine goes into damage control and you become the scapegoat. It’s so obvious. Jesus, Drew. Mark told me you were being unreasonable, but I didn’t think you of all people could be so stupid!”
His words cannot sink in. They can’t. No matter how right he is, I can’t leave her.
“Let me take her back to The Grove. Give you time to sort this out,” he says.
I’ve told no one about the microchip. At least there’s that.
“Paulson is personally there right now. Our techies are working on the text issue. They know who Lindsay’s darknet contact was when she was at the Island and think there’s a link,” he adds.
“A link?” Lindsay’s voice is high with anxiety. “What do you mean, a link?”
The implications of what Silas is saying hit me. Hard.
“He means that whoever helped you when you were on the Island is potentially behind setting you up for your fingerprints on the brake lines of your car, for buying the phone that texted you threatening messages, and now setting me up.”
Her gasp breaks my heart.
Bzzz.
That’s Silas’s phone. He takes a look, his face hardening. Cold eyes meet mine.
“She needs to get home. Now.”
“Please, Drew. What does this mean? What are they doing? My darknet person on the Island helped me to have outside access. To know what the outside world said about me. They didn’t -- ”
I ignore her words, but walk past Silas and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.
