They aren’t looking for me. Not the officials, anyway. The beauty of not existing anymore is that they can’t look for me.
But someone is. Someone’s watching.
So, I move stealthily, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, keeping a low profile. After endless meals of fish and fruit I thought I’d kill for a french fry, but after days of nothing but vending machines and energy drinks, I would happily go back to the island diet.
I don’t check into a hotel this time, but park amidst the RV’s lined up for the night in yet another Walmart parking lot, before I crash for the night. It’s so hot, I roll down the windows, despite the fact that radios are on and some people talking amongst themselves. I’m too tired to care, and too hot to roll the window up again.
It’s actually weirdly nice to listen to the idle chatter, and the distant sounds of things like cigarette lighters lighting up a smoke, ignitions being turned on, even somewhere in the distance, the cry of someone’s baby. God, I don’t care if I’m in clothes bought with stolen money and my belly’s full of vending machine burritos. I don’t care that I’m on a mission to find out who was behind our abductions. In my total state of exhaustion, none of that matters right now. All that matters is that I’m not on the island anymore. I’m my own person. And I’m one step closer to the freedom I’ve wanted since my captivity.
I’m drifting off when the sound of a radio reaches my ears.
“Ms. Lake insists her abduction was orchestrated by none other than real estate tycoon and infamous billionaire Finley Morose.”
Christ. Christ.
And that quickly, I’m wide awake. I look around me wildly to see where the sound came from, and finally locate a small, older RV to my right. An aging man with gray, unkempt hair has his feet on the dashboard, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
I run to his car. “Hey,” I say to him. “What station’s that?”
He doesn’t even open his eyes but speaks in a lazy southern drawl. “Ninety-nine point four,” he says.
I race back to my car, put the radio on, and turn to the station.
“I don’t know where he is,” comes a voice so familiar, the sound drives a knife straight through my heart. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. My heart is frozen in time, transfixed by the voice of the woman I love. “But wherever he is, I will find him.” I close my eyes. I can see her as if she were standing right in front of me. Beautiful, wide eyes with impossibly long lashes, those pink cheeks I’ve kissed so often I’ve memorized the patterns of little, fetching freckles. Full, cherry-kissed lips and vibrant red hair, always a little untamed. Like her. Just like her.
The voice changes and now it’s the reporter speaking again. “Why didn’t you go straight to the police? Why did you go to your work office first?”
“Because I work, or—I worked for the Times,” she says. “And I trust the media over law enforcement in this case. I want the word to get out before footage does. Cy Kaufman and I were kidnapped. Manipulated. Brainwashed. We spent months on a remote island, and just when we thought we were rescued, Cy was taken from me again. My name is Harper Lake, and I will not stop until I find him. Cy. Wherever you are. We will find each other.”
She’s gone straight to the media. My chest swells with pride.
Smart girl. My girl. She didn’t go to the police. She didn’t threaten us further but went to the one place she had access to, that she could count on to get the word out.
I swallow hard, my eyes blurred with tears. I don’t cry, but Christ if I don’t want to fall to my knees and weep like a goddamn baby.
She’s okay. My girl’s okay. And she’s determined to find me. Where is she now? Did she do a radio interview or actually go in person to the Times?
First, I have to get to Morose. We’re a team, me and Harper, and even though I can’t communicate with her, not now, we can work as one. She’ll spread the word, thereby tying Morose’s hands.
And I’ll bring him down.
I know why she did it. She wants to ride the media sensation which will form a sort of barrier before Morose can do anything to stymy it. She has friends and contacts in the media, and she’ll use that to her advantage. But hell, that girl’s brave.
“And now, it is the earnest intent of this radio station to urge law enforcement to act.” And that’s it. They move onto another story about a dog who saved someone’s life, and my girl is gone again. Just like that, like whispers of clouds through my fingers.