Chapter 7 #3
Sark speeds away and I cross the street, clutching my bag close.
I roam around the vicinity, looking at the club, poking my head inside to see what’s being done.
A construction guy tells me the place is closed and to ‘get out of here,’ so I walk around the building again before sitting on a bench covered in graffiti and waiting.
It’s a couple of hours before I notice the car, a beat-up brown thing that blends in well to the type of street this is.
I wonder if it’s been there all along or if it just arrived.
I should have been paying closer attention.
The lone man in it is watching me, I’m sure of it. I just hope it’s the right man, and not the stalker, or a Novelle employee, or a Banderville employee, or a cop, or some random, opportunistic attacker.
This is where the luck comes in.
Just have to trust the process.
So, I wait.
I get up a few minutes later and walk around the block again, checking my non-existent watch and huffing like I’m waiting on someone who’s late.
I mean, I sort of am, I guess.
It happens when I’m going around a corner. A black van skids to a halt next to me and the side slides open. I’m grabbed and shoved inside. An opaque sack is put over my head. My bag is ripped away from me and my wrists are wrenched behind me.
It hurts and I can’t help my cry as the fear bubbles up. My breathing comes in fits and starts.
‘Who are you?’ I call into the darkness, hoping for an inkling of confidence that my plan is going to plan. ‘What do you want from me?’
No one answers.
SHADE
Isee Lu walking across the Quad and I leave the guys, sprinting across to intercept her.
When I do, she doesn’t look surprised, but she does glance over her shoulder.
‘Where is she?’ I ask. ‘She was supposed to be on campus today. Is she still sick?’
‘She’s not on campus,’ Lu says cryptically. ‘Look, we can’t be seen together. Come with me.’
She leads me down the path to the English buildings and pulls me into one of them out of sight.
‘What the hell is going on?’ I snarl.
She looks unperturbed at my outburst, and I remember that she grew up with Pop Pop Garrett, a man known to lose his shit whenever the mood strikes him.
‘Okay, she was here. She came in this morning. She asked for my help. She said if I saw you, to tell you she was okay and she would let you know what’s going on as soon as she can.’
‘Where the fuck is she?’ I hiss.
‘I don’t know. She only wanted me to help her ditch the bodyguard.’
‘And did you?’
She snorts. ‘Of course. It was her plan. The execution, though, that was all me. Anyway, he’s still shitting his brains out in the employee bathroom at Grinder. She knew what she was doing when she woke up this morning.’
‘You have no idea where she went?’ I ask again, wanting to shake this girl and Daisy, too. ‘How can you not know?’
‘She didn’t tell me. I didn’t ask.’ Lu gives me a disgusted look. ‘She’s not a little kid. And she ain’t stupid, Novelle. I think you forget she’s a grown ass woman. I told you, she has a plan. Let her see it through.’
‘Fuck,’ I mutter, running my hands through my hair. ‘What if she’s leaving town?’
‘Running away?’ Lu lets out a long breath.
‘If she is, it might be a good thing. She… She didn’t look good.
Whatever’s been going on in that house, I don’t think it’s what we thought, or what she’s been saying.
At Grinder earlier, she was scared and really upset.
She was hiding it, but I could see it. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she looked like she’d been to Hell and back. ’
I lean against the wall. ‘I have to find her.’
‘You guys really care about her, huh?’ She murmurs.
‘Yeah,’ I say quietly. ‘She’s everything.’
‘If that’s true, then wait. She’ll contact you once she’s taken care of business.’
‘You don’t get it!’ I say harshly. ‘She was in a place, an institution for like a decade. She only just came out in September.’
‘Yeah,’ Lu says like I’m the idiot. ‘She told me.’
I blink at her dumbly. ‘She told you?’
Lu scoffs. ‘Um, I’m her bestie. Of course she told me. I mean, not all about it, but I know she was put in a place for killing that kid when she was like twelve, or whatever.’
I open and close my mouth, not sure what to say to that.
‘We don’t think she did that,’ I finally tell her. ‘Things just don’t really add up. And my father wanted her gone, so he didn’t fight it, just had it swept under the rug.’
‘That’s why you wanted Shannon to get that old file.’
‘Yeah.’
Lu shakes her head. ‘So, your dad just fed her to the wolves. You motherfucking Novelles are pieces of work, you know that?’
‘That was all my father. Not me.’ I say quietly.
‘I had no idea. I was a kid back then, too. Jesus. Don’t you think I would have done something if I could have?
Don’t you think I feel the guilt now? But the reality is, I couldn’t have done a damn thing.
My father’s word was law. All I knew was that my best friend had done something bad and had gotten sent thousands of miles away for her own good, and everyone else’s. ’
Lu purses her lips. ‘Well, like I said, I don’t know where she is, but she’ll be in touch when she’s done whatever it is that she’s doing.’
‘Fine. But when she contacts you…’
‘You’ll be my first call, Novelle.’ She holds up three fingers. ‘Scout’s honor.’
‘You were a Scout?’ I mutter as she walks away.
‘Fuck, no,’ she scoffs over her shoulder. ‘Me and the woods don’t mix.’
‘Oh, hey.’ She spins back around. ‘If you wanna actually help, get this phone far away from here. Somewhere random. Like the Jersey Shore, or something.’
She throws it to me and I catch it.
‘Whose is it?’
‘That bodyguard of Banderville’s.’
I nod. ‘I’ll have someone take it somewhere far away.’
She grins and leaves without another backward glance.
I message the guys to let them know where I ran off to from the Quad, and then I message Daisy’s phone. Nothing’s been read in two days. Was she not sick? Has she been lying this whole time while she was getting her ducks in a row to split without us?
My chest hurts at the thought of her just leaving and not even telling us, not bothering to say goodbye.
I see Blake and Mav walking toward me, their faces full of questions. I tell them everything Lu just told me, as succinctly as possible.
Mav looks thoughtful. Blake looks scared, though he’s trying to hide it.
‘You think she ran?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘But there’s a lot more going on than she’s been telling us. Our girl has been keeping secrets again.'
‘She wouldn’t have unless she had to,’ Mav says.
‘Think about it. She’s got Banderville and John and that stalker taking away all her independence.
She got a little back when she fixed Envy and was producing it.
Now, Banderville has taken it all away again.
She wants it back. She wants to take control of her life again.
She needs to. Plus, she’s used to being alone, making decisions herself. ’
‘You think we should just wait and see?’ I snarl.
‘Lu’s right. If Daisy wanted us involved in whatever she’s doing, she’d have told us.
She hasn’t, ergo, she wants to do whatever it is herself.
I trust her. I know she’s smart and capable.
She left us out of the loop for a reason.
So, I guess the real question is, do you both know the same things I do? ’
Blake nods after a moment.
‘Yeah,’ he says finally. ‘I know those same things. The problem is that she takes risks.’
Mav shrugs. ‘Arguably, ones she’s already assessed and decided are acceptable.’
‘Acceptable for whom?’ I mutter angrily.
I see what Mav is saying, and I agree to a point, but I can’t help but want to protect her the way I used to when we were kids, even if it’s from herself.
‘Old habits die hard, huh?’ Mav says, correctly guessing my thoughts.
‘I guess so,’ I sigh. ‘But when we see her, I swear to God, I’m tanning her ass red for keeping stuff from us again.’
Mav grins. ‘Maybe that’s one of her acceptable risks.’
I smile in spite of myself, remembering the times I’ve spanked her and she loved it.
‘I miss her,’ I say. ‘If she is running, we’ll find her when it’s safe.’
My friends nod in unison.
I just hope that’s sooner rather than later.
‘What about Banderville?’ I ask.
‘Do we know when we’re gonna do it? How?’
‘I’m researching his movements but he’s a slippery asshole. He doesn’t have a routine. Never does the same things at the same times. It’s going to be difficult to know where he’s going to be to get him.’
‘Maybe we can lure him somewhere,’ Mav suggests.
‘Maybe.’
‘Whose is that?’ Blake asks suddenly, pointing down at my hand and I realize I’m still holding the bodyguard’s phone.
‘This needs to be taken somewhere in case it’s being tracked. Lu said it’s the bodyguard’s. I was going to have one of the KIP guys take it out to the State Forest.’
‘No need,’ Blake says, holding out his hand for it. ‘I’ll take it. I’m about to head out there pretty deep anyways.’
‘Kormak?’ I say very quietly.
He nods, expression shuttered. ‘I’ll be back tonight sometime. What’s going on with Sauvage?’
‘He’s one pissed off French dude,’ Mav answers.
‘I’ve convinced him that it’s his pill press that’s the problem, so he’s getting another.
That’s bought me a couple of days to get the steps right.
But it’s not looking good.’ He winces. ‘I did message Daisy about it. I know you didn’t want me to but… She didn’t read it anyway.’
I nod. ‘No, you were right to. If we don’t keep him happy, then he’ll kill us and all of this will have been for nothing AND we won’t be able to protect Daisy anyway.’
Blake glances at his watch. ‘I gotta go.’
He leaves without another word, and we watch him trudge back toward the parking lot.
‘Kormak is asking him to do more since that other guy disappeared, you know?’ Mav remarks quietly.
‘Yeah. I know,’ I say, staring at my friend’s back until he’s out of sight. ‘That and Daisy not being here is taking its toll on him.’
‘I knew he cared about her a lot, but I didn’t realize she’d gotten under his skin so deeply.’
‘Me neither,’ I reply. ‘Took him by surprise, too, probably. We should keep a close eye on him. He might do something crazy if she’s not going to be around.’
‘Crazy? Like what?’
I shrug. ‘Go to the Banderville house and blow him away in his own office on camera?’
Mav gives me a look. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Close eye. Track his phone. I gotta get back to the lab. You coming?’
‘In a bit,’ I say, deciding that maybe I should speak to that bodyguard while his defenses are down.
He’s probably still at Grinder. Maybe I can get something out of him, like what exactly has been going on in the Banderville house. Failing that, well, I know Stephens is still in the hospital. He might have something.