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“I wasn’t pretending—you know I wasn’t. Feel the truth of that. Of us.”
Her eyes are cold. “If you follow me or try to contact me, I’ll tell the New York Tribune the story of Vonda O’Neil and a dog and their hold over Locke Worldwide.”
I get between her and the elevator door, but I don’t touch her. I’m not Denny. Except it’s too late. “I know what this looks like to you.”
“Do you?” she asks. “Please understand when I ask you to leave me be. Respect me on that. Have the money in my bank account by bank open tomorrow. With that you’ll get my silence and your company back.” She stabs the elevator button. “If the money isn’t there, you can kiss the stability of the Locke name goodbye. You’ll learn firsthand about the power of the Vonda name.”
“Screw the company. I want you,” I say.
Brett grabs my shoulder. “Dude.”
I shake him off. “We got this, Vicky.”
Her eyes shine as she backs into the elevator. She stands in there alone, finger stab-stabbing the button like she always does.
“It doesn’t actually go faster when you do that,” I whisper, but the doors are already closed.
Chapter Thirty
Vicky
“The day after tomorrow?” Carly is inconsolable when I tell her we have to leave. Her eyes shine wild. “It’s my junior year,” she says. “We can’t just leave!”
“We have to.”
“But we can’t! Please…”
“I’m so sorry.”
She collapses in a heap on our ratty green couch. “And our show just went up. And Bess…oh my god, I’ll never see Bess again!”
“You’ll see her again.” I hope. I think. I wrap my arms around myself.
“All my friends. Our whole life. If I leave school they’ll never let me back in.”
“I know, baby.”
“Isn’t there some other way? There has to be! You always think of something. You always do.”
The hope in her eyes kills me. “I thought about it long and hard. This is the best I can do for us.”
She flops back, staring listlessly at the ceiling.
I’m letting her down. I tried to take too much. I tried to fly too close to the sun and I got torched. I wipe the thought of Henry from my mind’s eye. He might be calling, but I’ve long since blocked him.
“All our stuff,” Carly says.
I want more than anything to wrap her up in a hug, to give her the hug that I actually really want for myself, but she’s not in the mood. “I’m sorry.”
“What if I finished out the semester living at Bess’s place? And then maybe it all dies down…”
“Connect the dots, Carly. Denny will spill. He lives to make my life miserable. Or somehow it gets out—too many people know. And Mom hears. She’s going to want you back. Especially if she sniffs the money—she’ll want you back and she’ll figure out an angle.”
“She’s a drug addict! She didn’t even file a missing persons report. Won’t they see?”
“She’s your mother and I’m Vonda—that’s what they’ll see. They’ll put you back with her. You’re leaving New York with me or her. You know I’m much more fun.”
She picks up a bright green scarf and a soft sob escapes her lips. Deep down, she knows I’m right. She was young, but she remembers the scary guys, and they’re still there. We know this because we secretly follow Mom on Facebook. We see her pictures, most of them from the inside of a bar or somebody’s trashy living room.
