Chapter Seventeen #3
“There’s usually a conversation. Which works a solid ninety percent of the time. If it’s not working on the rare occasion, if we’re in public, I remove her from the situation. If we’re at home, I like natural consequences.”
“If she won’t wear a coat, she has to be cold.”
“Exactly. Or logical consequences.”
“If you break it for mess it up, you have to fix it or clean it up.”
“Yep. I think she’s only needed like three time-outs in her life, and it’s been a long time. I haven’t needed to take a privilege away yet. I have a feeling that might come in the tween years. But for right now, she responds to all the other stuff.”
“Good to know. She’s been good every time I’ve been with her. Though she can con me into giving her candy or junk food pretty easily.”
“She can have candy and junky foods. I don’t want to villainize foods. So long as it’s only twenty percent of the diet, I think it’s fine.”
“Also good to know. I want to be on the same page now that you’re here.”
I couldn’t stop the “for now” from escaping my lips.
“No, not for now. You’re staying here.”
“I can’t stay if it continues not to be safe. We can’t live here forever.”
York sighed. “No, you’re right. What matters is safety, even if that isn’t here. That said, I think you’re safer with me and the club to watch over you than you would be alone.”
He didn’t have to say it: Look what happened the last three times I was alone.
“I don’t understand how it happened again when the apartment is in your name. The bills are in your name. I have no digital footprint. I changed the name of my ‘business’ and my phone…”
“I know you said you were no-contact with your family, but do you have friends who know where you are?”
“No.”
But, wait.
My heart sank.
No.
No, dammit.
I didn’t want to believe she was capable.
She’d helped us, for God’s sake.
“Runa?” York called, as I sat up, my heart hammering against my ribcage.
My soul screamed No!
But my mind, my mind knew that there was only one person who knew where Denali and I ended up each time we moved.
Which I shared with her because she’d been the one to get us out of Dodge when I needed help.
She was the one with the horror story about what happened to her former roommate.
And I wanted to entrust one person with our whereabouts in case I disappeared, in case I was murdered.
“Amanda.”
“What?” York asked, sitting up with me as I pulled my knees to my chest against the headboard.
“Amanda. It’s Amanda.”
“Who’s Amanda?”
“She’s a therapist I went to when I’d been worried that I was paranoid about people following me.
She… helped me. She gave me ideas on how to be sure I was being followed.
And when it was clear I was, she gave me the money we needed to get out of town.
I don’t… I don’t understand how she could have gone from that to… to this…”
But there was no one else.
“Unless… maybe there’s a tracker on my car.”
“No, babe.”
“It makes sense!”
“It doesn’t. When Eddie took your car in, I had him go over it with a fine-tooth comb. He would have found a tracker.”
“In something we own, then.” They’d been in my various apartments and hotel rooms.
“That you haven’t come across by now? You didn’t have much.”
“But… but why would she help and then turn around and help someone try to hurt us?”
“Money is an evergreen motivator. Or fear. Both work equally well.”
I mean, she made decent money. But she wasn’t rolling in it. And these guys certainly were willing to threaten, maim, and kill.
“When you’ve talked to her, has she asked questions that felt normal at the time, but in retrospect feel like she was fishing?”
My mind flashed back to our most recent call. How she’d pushed at me a few times. Enough to make me feel uncharacteristically frustrated with her.
“Maybe. Yeah. I mean… I hadn’t given her exact addresses to the motels and such, but she’d probably asked enough questions to stitch it together.”
“I’m gonna need her name, babe.”
“You can’t kill her.”
Though, if this genuinely was her, why was I feeling protective? Putting me in danger was one thing. Putting my daughter in danger was unforgivable.
“I don’t kill women. But I am going to have Arty look into her. See if she’s connected to anything he’s already looking into. If not, she might be getting a phone call. Or a visit. I’m gonna get answers. It’s the only way this ends.”
He was right.
Even if I hated it.
Even if some part of me was still trying to cling to the idea that Amanda was a good person, that she would never betray us like this.
Because she was all I had for so long.
But, I reminded myself, that was no longer the case.
I had York now.
I had Eddie and Harmon and Saskia and everyone else in the club. People who accepted me and agreed to protect me, no questions asked. People who would never, ever sell us out. Not for money; they had more than enough. And not out of fear; they had nothing to be afraid of.
“Her name is Amanda Jane Landon.”
“Alright,” he said, climbing off the bed. “You stay here and wait for Denali. I have some work to do.”