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Emily was navigating her slings and arrows a lot better than Cadence was. Lacy had snickered about leaking this blackmail footage on Cadence’s friend, but now his face twisted into rage as he saw that he was being thwarted.
Cadence tried to find her own escape, but outsmarting Lacy was a lot more difficult than how the movies made things look. She was still horribly aware of that gun that he held, and that increasingly unhinged tightness to his face.
She had to protect these people. She had to protect herself. She had to protect Porterandher babies! That meant going along with what Lacy said until she couldn’t any longer.
He’d opened her phone by using its facial recognition, holding it up to her face every time Porter wrote her. Lacy even wrote him back, giving him the opposite directions to where they were. She prayed that Porter would guess what was happening soon.
The spectators cheered loudly as Emily finished up her latest song.
How had she done it?
Cadence’s friend had successfully averted the scandal by playing off the blackmail footage as a publicity stunt. The crowd went wild.
“The thing is… Iama fraud,” Emily told her cheering fans. “I thought I could have the guts to perform by putting out an image that wasn’t me, and Nash? Well, he kinda showed me that I was wrong, that it feels better to just let myself shine through all this hoopla. I don’t need the polish or the glamour to make that connection with you because honestly, we already have a lot in common—I’m the girl next door. I’m Little Miss Harvest Ranch through and through, so uh… if you see Nash out there with you, do you think that you could tell him to come up here? I’d like to return the favor.”
“Marry him!” a lady shouted out behind her. Cadence jumped.
Emily laughed. “You ready to start this night?” she asked the excited spectators. Everyone screamed out in a deafening roar. Even if Cadence tried to call out for help, no one would hear her.
“Good,” Emily said. “Let’s do it!” Her band started the beginning notes of “Hot Summer Days.”
Lacy rushed Cadence into an alley of vendor tents.
Turning, she saw Porter. Her breath caught as their eyes locked. Lacy jerked her back. She twisted around. Porter had seen her. But why wasn’t he moving?
Because that wasn’t Porter. It was his twin brother.
He was still watching them. He took a step towards them.
Lacy threw his arm around Cadence to get her to duck her head as he dragged her away. “Which one is that?” he asked in an undertone.
“Porter,” she whispered.
He shouldn’t believe her, but Lacy’s face hardened as he took her in the direction of the entrance. He had! She held her breath, feeling sudden hope wrap around her heart. That was exactly where Lacy had told Porter to meet them. Was Lacy turned around or had he really been fooled into thinking that they were leaving Porter behind?
The small victory felt monumental in the face of her tumult of failures.
“I need his brother,” Lacy said. “He’s the only one who can sign those papers.” He wasn’t making much sense as he worked himself up into a blind rage. “I won’t let West take me down, not for this! Never for this!”
“Listen, Lacy,” she said. “I’m not going with you. You understand that? This is kidnapping. You don’t need that on your record. It’s beneath you.”
“Nothingis beneath me…” He wrenched her closer. “Andnoneof this is getting on my record. You hear me?”
She wouldn’t argue with a madman, but she had every intention of using this as evidence in court against him if he tried to get to her babies… unless he truly meant to hurt her, and if he did? She couldn’t let it get that far. “It won’t get on your record,” she tried to reassure him with her lies. “And what makes you so sure that I’m not on your side anyway?”
He laughed in her face. He might’ve been driven past the point of desperation, but he was still a savvy businessman, and he saw right through her. He took them further out into the field where the crowds were sparser.
He was hustling her out of the fairgrounds through the back way. The chain-link fences had nobody at the exits watching for trespassers. There hadn’t been enough volunteers to cover every possible place that someone could sneak in. No one, except people from town knew about it. A solitary field stretched past the fence, and from there, the movie drive-in. The popular hangout would be closed for the concert. No witnesses would see Lacy take her through or try to stop him.
A canopy of trees formed a picturesque frame in the distance. Lacy would try to take her into the forest, and then what? She’d never be found again?
Her heart sped up.God, please help me out! I know that you didn’t bring me here to meet these wonderful people, just to have me die. Help me to know what to say, what to do to get out of this.
She tried to dig in her heels, but Lacy grunted and heaved her forward. “What are you doing?” she cried. “This won’t help you.”
“I know what the Slades want more than anything—that’s you, Angel. They’ll want their good luck charm on their side, but you’re mine. Mine.”
He’d lost it.
