Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Sebastian
King has barely ended the call with Baldwin before he and I are poring over one of the printouts of the Hacklers’ properties. Pages and pages of properties in different states, different countries. Different continents . Holy hell. No wonder the Hacklers are considered flight risks.
In California alone, they have, by my count, four properties.
“This one,” King says, pointing to a house on the California list. The address is in the town of Foothill—just a couple hours’ drive from here. “This is where they found his car.”
“That’s it, we’re going,” I say.
Kingston nods. “I’ll drive.”
“Wait, where are you going?” Lin asks.
“We can’t just sit here.” I’m already opening the door. “We’re going to the Foothill property.”
As King and I get into his car, I say, “She’s not going to be there.”
He nods.
“He dumped the car and took her somewhere else,” I say. “We need to figure out where.”
“My guess is Mexico. No fucking idea how he plans to get across the border, though.”
We speed toward the house, winding our way along a frontage road and then into the foothills that gave the nearby town its name.
Even though it sounds like Joel abandoned his car here and went somewhere else with Ella, and officers have already canvased the scene, Kingston and I need to see the place for ourselves.
Two hours pass in tense silence. King’s navigation system brings us all the way around the town of Foothill—the house isn’t in the actual town limits. We turn down a long, quiet road.
“There’s nothing out here,” I say. “No houses, no neighbors.”
“He didn’t want witnesses when he moved her from one car to the other.”
I have to force out the words I’ve been afraid to say out loud. “Do you think she’s…okay?”
“Yeah. He won’t kill her in cold blood.” He shakes his head, as if trying to get rid of a thought.
“What is it?” I ask.
“He’s not going to kill her,” King insists, “but he said he wanted to destroy what I love most.”
My blood runs cold. “The fuck? King, he needs to be in jail. That’s a big fucking threat.”
“I know.”
I’m furious. Even though this isn’t his fault, I’m mad at Kingston.
I’m also mad at Joel. At the bodyguards for not preventing this from happening.
At Ella for getting into a car with Joel.
At myself, for not fucking protecting my girl.
If I’d skipped that dinner last night, I would’ve been at home with her, holding her, keeping her safe.
“We’re going to get her back,” Kingston says.
“I can’t fucking talk right now.”
He nods and keeps his eyes on the road.
Eventually, we come to a large house with dark wood siding. Large picture windows take up most of the front. I struggle to see through the reflected sunlight and branches. As far as I can tell, there’s no movement inside.
The officers who came to check the place out are long gone.
“There’s Joel’s car,” King says, pointing.
I see it, too. A silver Porsche identical to Kingston’s.
King pulls up next to it and we climb out of his car. I gaze around the driveway, shielding my eyes from the bright morning sunlight, hoping to find some big clue that the police officers might have missed. I want this to make sense. I want answers. I want to get Ella back.
“Well, should we go in?” I ask, pointing at the house.
Kingston shrugs. “It’ll be breaking and entering, but I don’t give a damn if you don’t.”
I kick open the door and we go inside. There’s no alarm—it was probably disabled when the police came to look around earlier.
“We’re not going to find anything,” I say. “She isn’t here.”
“I have to look anyway.”
I do, too. And it’s not like we’ll be doing anything better when we return to the Ironwood offices. There, we’re just getting in everyone’s way.
We move throughout the home, our footsteps quiet over plush rugs. Tacky-ass faux antiques have been used to furnish the place.
Room by room, we look inside. I feel like I would just know, on an instinctual level, whether Ella’s in the house. And I don’t get the feeling at all that she’s here. We check the garage, the bathrooms, the closets, and everywhere else.
Once we’ve gone through every room of the house, we move into the back yard. A shed sits behind the garage. The door is unlocked, and the shed is empty.
Wordlessly, Kingston and I move around the side of the house, back toward his car.
This was a waste of time. I knew it from the beginning, but I couldn’t hold back.
She’s been here, I’m sure of it. After all, Joel took her in the Porsche, and here’s the Porsche.
Unless he dropped her somewhere else, first?
What if she escaped, and she’s walking around in some unfamiliar town, or along the side of the freeway somewhere?
“What’s this?” King asks, bending to pick something up. “Is this hers?”
He holds out a sparkly purple barrette. Sunlight coming through the trees catches on the glitter paint. I can picture that barrette in Ella’s brown curls—I’ve seen her wear it. My breath catches in my throat. I swallow several times, trying to ease the ache.
“Definitely hers,” I finally say. “I bought a pack of those for her.”
He grips it tightly, closes his eyes, and exhales. “She left it here for us to find. She wants us to know she was here.”
He’s not a fucking psychic, but in my gut—in my heart—I believe he’s right about this. Ella dropped her barrette on purpose.
King’s phone rings and he pulls it from his pocket. Holding it up to his ear, he says, “Yeah.” His eyes meet mine. “Yeah. Thanks. We’ll head down there, too.”
“What is it?” I ask as he pockets his phone and hurries to his car.
“Baldwin got a call about a sedan driving erratically, coming out of Ridge Rock toward I-5. The callers say they nearly got swiped when passing, and it looked like the man hit the woman. They were concerned about drunk driving and domestic violence so they called in.”
“So we’re going down there now, right?” I’m already getting into the car.
He starts the engine. “Yeah. I don’t know if we should go on the deserted highways toward Ridge Rock, which will slow us down potentially, or straight from here to I-5, which is faster.”
“Straight to I-5,” I say. “We’ll catch up with them.”
“What if we blow straight past?” he says, peeling out of the driveway.
“We won’t,” I say. “It’s just a feeling, but I’m going with it.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
We’re coming, princess , I say to Ella in my mind. We’re going to find you and bring you home .
Ella
With every passing mile, we’re getting closer to I-5. I start seeing signs for it. Once we’re there, we’ll be surrounded by other cars. If Joel takes his eyes off me for even a second, I can signal that I need help.
I have to be careful, though. Even though I’m still driving, I don’t doubt for a second that he’ll shoot me if he thinks I’m signaling other drivers.
He keeps feeling around in his pockets, probably searching for more pills.
“Joel, what are you even thinking with this trip?” I ask.
“I’m thinking we’ll go to Oaxaca and have ourselves a good time. I have a place near Puerto Escondido.”
“I don’t want to go to Puerto Escondido.”
“You’re not good enough for anything or anywhere else.
You can be my little maid.” He laughs. “You know my old man and Sebastian are just fucking around with you, right? They do it all the time. They meet a street urchin, dress her up like a pet. Parade her around for a few weeks, a few months at most. Then they get tired of her and drop her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You should.” He laughs again. “You should’ve seen the last chick—Avery. She lasted longer than most at three months. I’d say you’ve hit your expiration date with them, since you’re nearing that time, too, aren’t you?”
“Shut up,” I say. “You don’t know anything.”
He scoffs. “I’ve watched the revolving door of my father’s penthouse much longer than you have. You’re only good enough to polish it, not much else.”
It shouldn’t hurt. I shouldn’t believe a word out of his poisonous mouth. But I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten. And my brain latches onto the images he’s painting like maybe he isn’t entirely wrong.
Trying to shake away the thoughts, I say, “You should just let me go.”
“Nah. You’ll come around.”
“What about the border?” I ask carefully. I don’t want to scare him into hurting me, but if I frame this right, maybe I can convince him to set me free. “I’m not going to be much fun, and I don’t have a passport, anyway. So you’ll have a better chance of getting into Mexico without me.”
I can feel his attention on me, like he’s seeing me anew.
“Holy shit, you’re right,” he says. “A fucking passport. Of course someone without any money wouldn’t have a card or book for leaving the country. Where’s your purse?”
He finds it on the floor without me saying anything, then looks through my wallet.
“The fuck. Why didn’t you tell me you don’t have a passport?”
Right. Because I’m going to share all kinds of information with my kidnapper out of the goodness of my heart?
“I just thought of it,” I lie. “Anyway, you can still go to Mexico, but without me. We can just pull over here—or wherever. Just let me out. I’ll find my way home, and by the time I get there, you’ll be far, far away.”
He’s still staring at me. His blue eyes are cold. “You’re a problem, aren’t you?”
“An easy-to-fix problem. Just let me out, Joel.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, staring straight out the windshield at the road ahead. “Of course.”
He’s fucking lying.
I failed in how I framed this problem. Because in Joel’s mind, he only has two options: kidnap me and force me to go to Mexico, or kill me.
He can’t take me to Mexico.
He’s going to kill me.
Terror seizes my heart, squeezing it like a vise.
We’re approaching a town, one of those tiny places that exist along highways a few miles outside of the larger cities. I am not going to leave that town. If he gets me somewhere quiet and deserted, I am going to die. I know this with every instinct I possess.
“Joel,” I say. “Please. Please, just let me out of the car. I promise I won’t say anything to anyone about your plans.”
“Relax,” he says with a false smile. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Lies.
“Turn around up there,” he says. “When we reach the gas station.”
“Turn around? Why?”
“Just fucking do it.” He pats his pockets again, looking anxious.
He wants more pills because he needs energy, courage. Because he’s going to kill me and leave me in the desert.
I grip the steering wheel, trying to remember how to breathe. Panic is clogging my lungs, robbing me of my thoughts.
I have to do something. I refuse to drive this stupid car back into the desert so as to allow this asshole the chance to shoot me.
“Joel, seriously. Let me out up here. I’ll be stranded in a town that’s so small it doesn’t even have a name, and you can keep driving out of the country.”
“Shut the fuck up, Ella. You don’t know what you’re talking bout.”
We’re fast approaching the gas station. There’s a squat, tiny building. In front of it are two pumps, covered by an overhang. A large sign on a giant post proclaims the place’s name: Gas’n Up.
“Fuck it, where are those goddamn pills?” Joel pulls the gun from his pocket and points it at me. “You. Don’t fucking try anything, you got that?”
“I—what are you doing?”
The idiot unbuckles his safety belt.
My mind races. This is the chance I need, the one I couldn’t have even hoped for.
I need something that won’t cause damage to other people—just to this car. And I need it fast.
The sign post, right next to the gas station, will do the trick. The base of it is made of a giant concrete block.
“Slow down,” Joel says, a warning in his voice. “You’re supposed to turn around here, remember? So I can take you somewhere and set you free.”
“Yeah, slowing down now,” I say.
He must hear the jangle of nerves in my voice, because he spins around in his seat to face forward. Instead of seeing me slowing down to turn around, he finds us speeding straight toward that concrete sign post.
Joel shouts and tries to yank the wheel.
He’s too late, and my grip is too firm.
Metal screams a protest as we hit first the curb, which spins us up on two wheels. And then the side of the car hits the post. It’s not a direct hit like I’d hoped, but maybe the car will be totaled.
There are no airbags. The car spins and rolls—at least, that’s what I think it must be doing. The world is a blur around us.
The car lands on its side and something heavy falls on top of me.
Joel. He’s not talking, not moving. Could he be dead?
I try to dislodge one of my arms, but something’s keeping it in place—the steering wheel, as well as Joel’s weight.
I should check for a pulse. What if he’s dead?
Immediately my mind scrambles to all the worst-case scenarios—Joel trapping me here and the car’s engine catching fire.
My heart thuds as rhythm of panic. I have to get out.
My arms won’t budge.
“Joel?” I whisper.
He groans.
“Joel, we have to get out of the car.”
“You…fucking…bitch.”
His heavy weight shifts over me. Strong hands wrap around my throat, squeezing, choking. I try to fight him off, but my arms are still pinned underneath him. My legs are trapped, I can’t move. I can’t do anything as the world around me darkens to gray, and then black.