AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jensen steeled his jaw. “There’s more,” he said. “As soon as I saw that email and realized something weird was going on, I remembered where I knew the name Carruthers from.”
“Where?” I asked, brows shooting up.
“It’s Zara’s maiden name. Her father used to live in the house you’re living in now. He died a while ago, and Zara inherited the place from him and moved in,” he said. “I never knew the old man’s full name because I was just a kid when he was around, so I only ever knew him as Mr. Carruthers. But I looked him up last night after I remembered. He was Michael J. Carruthers. The same guy who gave your dad that contract.”
I sat frozen in my bed, eyes wide and unblinking. “What?”
“Zara is his daughter,” Jensen said. “She lied right to your face when she said she found that contract in an old storage unit. Ali lied too.”
Trembling, I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to hold down the bile rising in my throat. “This isn’t real,” I muttered. “It’s all a big mistake.”
“Amerie.” Jensen took my hand and squeezed it hard. “I know you’re coming down from a ton of painkillers right now, so everything probably seems really confusing, but this isn’t a dream. It’s real.”
I felt as though every hair on my body was standing on end. “I don’t understand,” I repeated in a whisper, vehemently shaking my head. “None of this makes any sense.”
“You can’t trust them, Amerie. They’re all pretending,” Jensen said. There was a hard steel beneath his words. “Zara, Ali, Piper… they aren’t your family. They’re setting you up.”
“Setting me up for what?”
“I don’t know what their end game is.” He slowly shook his head. “But no one with good intentions lures a girl into their home and pretends to be her family. Especially when there’s a creepy old contract involved.”
Slowly, the reality of everything I’d just learned began to sink in. My heart was pounding so hard against my ribcage that I could feel it in my throat. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except sit there and feel the shock and horror wash over me like a wave.
“A rumor went around at school today,” Jensen went on. “Started by Piper, I assume.”
“Saying what?”
“That you’re on drugs, and you got attacked by a dealer last night.” He paused and lifted his gaze to the bandage around my forehead. “It’s not true. I think the Prescotts are trying to make you look crazy for some reason.”
I gingerly reached up to touch my head. “So what really happened to me, then?” I asked in a hollow voice. “I don’t remember anything.”
“What’s the last thing you do remember?”
I scrunched my face up, concentrating hard. “I went to your house for some reason. You were making a grilled cheese sandwich. Then I went home to study. Everything after that is gone.”
“You found a letter in your room later that day,” Jensen said. “It was supposedly from a high-ranking Rosmerta member who wanted to meet with you and help you with your article.”
“Really?” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“Here. I’ll show you.” He took his phone back and went into our message thread. “See? You messaged me about it.”
“What the hell?” I muttered, mind spinning as I scanned the screen. “This map… it’s in my house.”
“Yeah. The tunnel at the back of the cellar is real. That’s where you went last night.” Jensen scrubbed a hand over his face. “I wanted to go with you, but you didn’t want me there because you were worried the Rosmerta contact would leave.”
“So that’s where I was attacked? Down in that tunnel?”
Jensen pressed his lips into a grim line. “I have no idea, but I assume so. I started to worry about you when you weren’t back after an hour, so I sneaked into your bedroom. That way I could go down to the cellar in your house and find the tunnel myself,” he said. “My phone wasn’t working properly last night, so I grabbed your phone to get the map from your photo gallery. I accidentally clicked into that email when I unlocked it. As soon as I read it and made the connection with Carruthers, I knew you were in trouble. So I found the map and went down to the meeting spot.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.” Jensen shook his head, rubbing his stubble-lined jaw. “By the time I got down to the meeting spot, there was no one there. They must have taken you out already. Or maybe they went through a different tunnel. There’s a lot of them down there.”
I swallowed hard. “So… Ali and Zara are probably the ones who lured me down there, right?”
“Yeah. I’d bet my life on it.” Jensen stared at me, eyes flickering with concern. “Are you sure you can’t remember anything about it?”
“No.” I weakly shook my head. “Sorry.”
