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35
Rhiannon
The night before
Rhiannon woke up in darkness. Her arms were bound. Her legs were chained. She was desperately thirsty.
Then she heard footsteps. Coral stomped into the cave, weighed down by a backpack. She was sweating like she’d been running. Rhiannon blinked in surprise. She thought she’d imagined Coral’s face in her bedroom. It didn’t seem possible.
Coral stood over her, snickering, looking much older than her years. “Oh, Pigeon. Oh, Pigeon, how you got it all right, but how you got it all wrong.”
Rhiannon took in the young woman’s features. It was so incredibly confounding.
“You’rethe recruiter?” She blinked up at her silhouette. “But…why?”
Coral smiled sadly. “You couldn’t afford the financial commitments to stay here. And I mean, where else were you going to go? You’d lose the baby. People would find out. You could say I’m just trying to support healthy parent relationships.”
Rhiannon felt a lump in her throat. “I don’t understand how you knew anything about me. You didn’t come here untilafterI did.”
“I knew who you were when you came. I’ve been tracking you for a while. And I needed to keep you here until I could come, too—anduntil I could round up the others.” She clucked her tongue. “It also took some real arm-twisting with Marjorie to accept me as a resident. But you know how it is—she only likes people who are damaged. Who, like,needthis place. Clearly I couldn’t show my hand in that department, so I just sort of fudged it. But lucky for me, I had a lot of cash. My adoptive parents are loaded. And I had to promise that I’d cook all of the meals for the whole place in exchange. You think that’s fun, cooking for all of you? Half the time, you don’t even appreciate it.”
Rhiannon had no idea what she was talking about. “What do you want?” she whispered. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want you to do what I ask. So far, you have. But you got a piece of the puzzle a little too early. You started to ask too many questions.”
“About…Lenna?” Something else occurred to her. “Yousent me that photo? Of my mother and me? How did you know about that?”
“I found it on your phone.” Coyly, Coral put her finger to her lips. “I’m a pretty good hacker. It runs in the family.”
Then she knocked Rhiannon out.
36
Lenna
October
Present day
Lenna’s phone trembles in her hands. She lowers it from her ear, gasping in the darkness. Coral’s loose curls appear in silhouette.Gillian’sloose curls…or so she’d thought. Funny, Coral always had her hair in a bandanna; Lenna never noticed.
Sarah sits up, gaping at her in horror.“Coral?”she cries. “Honey, why?”
“Where’s Jacob?” Lenna says at the same time. “What have you done with him?”
Coral ignores this question, looking at Sarah. “You really have no idea why I’m here?”
Sarah shifts to sitting. “I-I’m sorry, but no…”
“How about you, Lenna?”
Lenna shakes her head, too terrified to speak.
“Come on. You’re smarter than that.” Coral puts her hands on her hips. “She told you about me. I know she did. Some friendyouare. Then again, you pushed her into a canyon, so…”
“Gillian?”Rhiannon whispers.
Coral points at her. “Good job!”
