Chapter 46
Thea
I’ve watched dozens of cop shows. So I know that when I wake up in the trunk of a vehicle I’m supposed to kick out the taillight.
Maybe the shows make it look easy, or maybe my lack of time in the gym is proving itself, because I can’t get my tied legs to work together to kick where I think the light is.
I roll to the side and hit something soft.
“Ouch.”
“Andi?” I hazard a guess.
“Yeah.”
I’m equal parts thrilled I’m not alone and horrified to suffer the same fate as the woman who played my family for years.
“We have to escape,” I say.
“That was abundantly obvious,” she mutters.
Her snarky response immediately brings back the pain… and anger.
“And how are your life choices treating you?”
“About the same as yours,” she retorts.
“Seriously?” I swing my legs and throw them forward as hard as I can. It does nothing but bruise my hip.
I can feel Andi preventing me from moving.
“Are you trying to start a fight with me right now?” I kick again.
“I’m trying to get free,” she hisses.
“Maybe you deserve to be taped up.”
“Agh,” she screams, stopping her own kicking. “I know you hate me, and you have every right to, but do you remember everything from last week?”
I take a moment to really consider this.
My memories are few and far between, but as I walk backward, starting with Andi asking about my dad’s retirement two weeks ago, more memories follow.
She’s the one who prompted me to search for the records.
That’s when I’d remembered SciTech’s terms and that receiving the funds was contingent on the return of the missing drug.
When I first read that clause a year and a half ago, I was too deep in grief and stress to even think about it.
But during one of my dad’s more lucid episodes last week, I asked him about it.
It sent him into a full freak-out, and he told me how awful it was.
I promised I wouldn’t let SciTech get it. I thought I was safe to tell Andi, but she was still under their thumb. I saw the greed that had consumed her, though she tried to hide it. I knew immediately that she wanted it.
I pinch the tips of my fingers as memories come in one after another, painfully dredging up the last week of my life like it was never gone.
My dad told me he only trusted one person with his research, one person who may be able to figure out how to use it for good. His doctor friend in Russia, a Boris… something. He couldn’t remember the man’s last name.
I needed to get rid of the formula, but I had naively gone to Gavin first, laying out vague clues that I may have found it. He played nice for a while, pretending he’d give me anything I wanted in exchange for the drug, but he was lying. And…
Oh gosh, I threatened to turn him in.
That’s what prompted the renewed effort to get the formula from me.
I was followed to and from work. My work building was broken into.
That’s when I reached out to a private security agency.
They warned me not to use my regular messaging apps to transfer the information and promised to help me find my dad’s friend.
I found the formula and a mini-drive in the bottom of the porcelain duck—the one Pierce was studying so closely last night. Like he knew.
The security firm found my dad’s friend in Russia and set me up with an email and a recovery agent… Pierce.
I gasp. “I’m Mr. Smith.”
“What?”
I took the drive to Mexico to meet with Pierce, under the guise of going on the vacation Scott had planned for us.
The rush of memories is overwhelming, and I shut my eyes, even though it’s dark.
The night before I left I found Andi in the house, snooping around. I threatened to call the cops, but she left willingly.
“You tried to take my dad’s formula… for them, right? Gavin and SciTech. That’s why you came over every Sunday for dinner since the accident. Why you got close to us. You’ve been searching for it.”
My stomach rolls, and I want to shove the woman out of the car. But even after everything, hurting her won’t fix how she hurt us.
“I’ll admit, that’s how it started,” she speaks quickly, knowing I won’t allow it long. “They told me my job depended on my getting that formula.”
The promotion.
“Sucks you had to lie instead of relying on the quality of your work to prove your worth.”
“You’re in a male-dominated field, too. You know it’s not easy. It’s worse here, Thea. They threatened to release me and write me a bad recommendation. I’d never get another job as a chemist, and I’m in debt up to my eyeballs.”
I almost pity her. Almost. She could have told me. I might have been sympathetic. But she never gave me an option.
“I never wanted—”
The car slows, and I bring myself back to the current predicament.
“You can make your excuses later. We need to stick together if we want to get out of this,” I say.
The car makes a turn, sending me into Andi, and something pokes into my shoulder.
“Great. Do you have a plan?” she asks.
“Not exactly.”
“I could pretend to be sick.”
Clearly, she has little experience with dangerous situations. No wonder Pierce was always so annoyed with me.
“I don’t think a kidnapper cares if we’re sick. We’re going to die anyway.”
The road becomes bumpy, and each bump brings us one step closer to the end. I try once again to get my arms and feet free.
“There’s something poking my shoulder. Can you reach it?” I ask her.
Andi maneuvers, kicking me in the head as she does.
“Owww.”
“Sorry.”
Funny, she doesn’t sound sorry. “Did you get it?”
She wheezes as she tries again. “I can’t… reach it.”
The car comes to an abrupt stop. “Follow my lead,” I whisper. I don’t know what I’m going to do. What I can do. I’ve got to try something.
A door opens and shuts. Then muffled steps on gravel grow nearer and nearer. My heart stalls, my body growing stiff and cold. My fight-or-flight instinct is non-existent. I’m a freezer.
And my time has run out.
The trunk creaks open, and light blinds me.