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“Where are they?” A bright, swelling anger blooms amidst the numb confusion buzzing in my brain. “Tell me exactly where they’re stored.” I haven’t thought about the embryos in what feels like forever. “The embryos.”
“New Life Fertility, over on second street.” He doesn’t even hesitate. I stand up before I know what I’m doing. “Avery?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
A part of me that’s been frozen solid begins to thaw. I’m not looking at another murderer. Another accomplice. For the first time, I see Joshua Grayson clearly. And...I think he might be an ally, if not a friend.
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t try to stop me when I head toward the door.
“Watch your back,” he calls after me, and when I turn around, there’s an urgent, raw look on his face. “There’s somebody pulling the strings here, Avery. Somebody we don’t know about yet.” A beat. “Be careful.”
“I will. Thank you.”
The door swings shut behind me and Elliot looks at me, a barely restrained hope written all over his face.
“He doesn’t have any information about the videos.” I’m sure of it. I’ve been wrong a lot lately, but I don’t think I’m wrong about this. “Did Will agree to meet with me?”
Elliot shakes his head, his hope crumbling. “He was adamant. No visitors. I couldn’t even bribe a guard to go around his lawyers. Plus, he’s in solitary for beating a guard up the day he stepped in here. Did you know the guy has a black belt?”
“Yup.” That’s not altogether surprising that he’s refused my visit. I blew Will’s cover on the spyware he installed on my phone and then showed up at a moment of total, utter humiliation for him. No wonder he doesn’t want to meet me for a casual chat. My brain swims with all the things Joshua just told me. It’s probably not a good time to have another high-stakes conversation anyway.
It’s time to do something else.
I need to right a wrong that was committed a decade ago.
“Hey, Elliot.” The plan forms in my mind, crystal clear, like I’d been thinking of it for weeks. “Could we stop off on the way back to the station? There’s somewhere I’d like to go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AVERY
New Life Fertility is the kind of nice, unassuming place I could see myself visiting if my life hadn’t gone completely off the rails. Somewhere out there is a version of Avery Capulet who maybe isn’t filthy rich but is also free, and the one thing to go awry with her pampered little life is that her husband’s sperm don’t swim well or her eggs don’t pop out on time.
Unfortunately, that’s not me.
As Elliot pulls into the parking lot, I open my purse and pretend to dig for my wallet. The gun is there, just like it’s supposed to be.Perfect.I never thought I’d be the kind of person who had to carry her own gun. Three months ago, there was actually another version of me who knew that security would always be available. I’d never have to buy a gun.
How things change.
I give Elliot a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you. I’ll be right out.”
He narrows his eyes, reading the sign out front. “No prob—”
I hop out of the car and head toward the entrance before he can finish what he’s saying. No time to get drawn into a conversation about what we’re doing here. Only time to act. There’s a heady freedom in just deciding something and then doing it.
It’s a freedom that has been denied to me for far too long.
The glass sliding doors at the front of the clinic give me the opportunity to shake out my hair and put on a smile before they retract open and welcome me inside. With my sunglasses on, I look very close to normal. I could be the Avery Capulet with a few bad eggs and a lot of hope.
But I’m not.
The woman behind the counter in pink scrubs smiles at me. “Welcome to New Life Fertility,” she says. Another patient in the waiting room, a painful hope etched on her face, lifts her head at the sound of another nurse calling her name. The woman gets up and walks back through the door that must lead to the exam rooms. “How can I help you?”
A twisting, breaking sensation in my chest, near my heart, brings me to the verge of tears and rears back again. I lift my purse to the countertop.
