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Paxton
“You believe me, right?” I crossed my arms, eyes narrowed on the cops in front of me.
I’d informed them about Michaela and showed them the footage of Sienna being attacked in the parking lot over half an hour ago, but it felt like nothing was happening. Police and forensic workers were milling around the lot, talking on their phones or making notes, but none of them were actually doing anything.
One of the cops—a detective named Leahy—nodded. “Don’t worry, Mr. Cole. We believe you. We’ve already arranged for a team to search Ms. Langdon’s dorm. We tracked down her car too. Unfortunately it’s parked right here.”
He paused and pointed toward the other end of the lot. “She must’ve taken someone else’s car,” he went on, turning back to look at me. “But we’re looking at every option. A team is on its way to search her parents’ house right now.”
I nodded, slightly mollified. It still didn’t feel like enough, though. Michaela might be crazy but she wasn’t fucking stupid. She wasn’t going to take Sienna to her mom and dad’s place. So where would she go? It had to be somewhere she knew. Somewhere she felt safe and comfortable. But where the hell was that? I didn’t know her well enough to have any clue.
The fact that we barely knew each other actually made me think that she didn’t know about my involvement with Sienna. Otherwise she’d be coming after me right now. But I was totally fine, while Tate was lying in a coma and Sienna was missing.
I had a feeling that I knew what her current plan was. She probably thought she’d killed Tate, and now she’d decided to deal with Sienna too. However, she was smart enough to know that it would look suspicious if both Tate and Sienna died on the same day in different circumstances. That meant she probably intended to stash Sienna somewhere for a few days before finally doing away with her. So for now, Sienna was very likely still alive.
Still, time was of the essence. I had no idea when or how Michaela intended to kill Sienna, and I also had no idea where she was.
One thing I did know was that she was mentally unraveling due to her fear of getting caught. That was why she was suddenly making so many stupid mistakes, like missing my involvement in the matter or letting herself be seen attacking Sienna on the surveillance camera, even though she was probably going to try to make Sienna’s death look like an accident or suicide.
My mind kept whirling through every piece of information, every idea, every option. A lightbulb seemed to switch on all of a sudden, and I strode back over to the cops.
“Michaela’s dad is a senator,” I said. “They have to disclose assets, right? Including real estate. Like vacation homes. Michaela could be hiding Sienna there, if they have one.”
Leahy glanced over at me again. “Don’t worry, Mr. Cole. We’re looking into it,” he replied. “You should go home and get some rest.”
Rest? How the fuck could I rest right now?
I clenched my jaw and turned away. Everyone here was being far too fucking slow for my liking. Clearly, they just didn’t feel the same sense of urgency that I did when it came to Sienna. I really thought they would’ve cared more about the missing daughter of a famous politician like Greg Holland, but apparently not.
I yanked my phone out of my pocket and opened a web browser. I was fairly sure that the assets of politicians were public record. I just had to find the right place to look.
Ten minutes later, I finally found the address for the Langdon’s summer house on a dark corner of the FEC website, where the family’s assets had been filed as part of a campaign finance record during the last election. It was about three and a half hours from here, in a tiny town called Cape Charles.
That had to be the right place. I could somehow sense it, like a magnetic pull was drawing me toward it. Sienna was there, waiting for me to find her. Waiting for me to save her and hold her in my arms forever.
I looked up at the cops. They were still standing around talking to each other or on the phone.
Fuck it. I didn’t have time to waste. I needed Sienna now.
I had to go and get her myself.
Sienna
“You’re lying.” I slowly shook my head as my guts roiled. “You couldn’t possibly have killed my mom.”
“You know I’m smarter than I look, right?” Michaela said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, hello, I got away with a literal mass murder when I was sixteen.”
I swallowed the lump of fear and grief in my throat. “How could you do it?”
“Do you mean how in an emotional sense? Or literally how did I do it?”
“Both.” My voice was about to crack. “How, Michaela?”
“Well, for the first point, I really needed your mom out of the way so Greg would be with me. I didn’t really feel bad about it at all. Just nervous that I’d get caught. But I didn’t. Then, of course, you were the next problem I had to deal with,” she said. She paused to let out a sigh, drumming her fingertips on the steering wheel as she waited at a stop sign. “As for how I actually did it… well, it’s easier to tamper with someone’s car than you might think. You can thank Tate for that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, stomach lurching once again at the memory of Tate slumped over the steering wheel of his car, covered in blood.
“Remember how he always used to make us watch all those true crime shows with him?” Michaela said. “One episode was basically a play-by-play about how some guy in Texas killed his ex-wife by messing with her car. It inspired me, so I went home and did some more research and figured out exactly how to do it.”
