“That sounds…heavy,” Liza said.
“Wait, you knew him?” Kins asked me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” I said. “I was part of the witness protection program. At least, I thought I was.” I looked back at Miles. I knew we had both changed. But I wanted to hold on to a piece of who I was. Didn’t he?
“Another question,” Liza said. “Did you two have fun reuniting last night?” She wiggled her eyebrows, causing her glasses to slide down her nose.
“Didn’t you say you had something important to discuss?” Miles asked.
Liza slid her glasses back up. “Right. I do.” She held up her finger and ran back toward her computers. She came back with a file folder and paged through it. “Remember when we thought Mr. Crawford was bringing in new recruits? Well, he wasn’t.” She pulled out a picture.
I leaned forward to get a better view. It wasn’t the clearest image, but it was unmistakable. My old babysitter’s face was staring back at me, smiling. “Julie?”
“Yup. Julie Harris is alive and well. And I’m guessing that’s Jacob, although I couldn’t get a good visual on his face.” Liza pointed to the man beside her.
“Right, her fiancé.” I put my hand on my chest. I had been hoping it was them. God, it felt like a miracle. “She’s okay?” For months I had been worried about what had happened to her. She had just disappeared. I thought she was dead. I was almost certain of it.
“She’s definitely okay. But actually, it turns out that Julie isn’t who you said she was. Your glowing comments of her led me on a wild goose chase.”
“What?”
“Julie Harris isn’t on our side. She’s the daughter of Deidra Harris. Maiden name Deidra Roberts.
Roberts?
“Julie is Don’s niece.”
“She…” my heart felt like it stopped. “She babysat me all the time. My parents trusted her. She…” my voice trailed off. “How could she?”
“You were meant to see that article about how she went missing. You were meant to feel bad for all these months. All of this was planned. For years maybe. First to trap Mr. Crawford, who surely saw the same articles. And then to trap you.”
“What do you mean to trap her?” Miles asked.
“I got audio of the whole plan,” Liza said. “I left a bug in the hotel room that we rescued you from and listened to them scheming. We can finally end all of this. Tomorrow night at 9 p.m. you’re going to get a phone call. Julie is going to sound distressed. And she’s going to beg you to come save her.” She put air quotes around the word save. “But really you’re gonna get payback, bitch!”
I didn’t care that she had just called me a bitch. I didn’t care that Julie was a traitor. All I cared about was that this could finally end.
“So we already know that Julie was in his pocket. What if the cops were in his pocket back then too? If where you grew up was anything like what power he has here…” She clapped her hands together and smiled. It was like she was waiting for me to guess what she was about to say.
I didn’t know what she was getting at. “It probably was. It was like that everywhere I lived with him.”
“Exactly.” She squealed.
I looked over at Miles to see if he had any idea what Liza was trying to say. There was a frown on his face that I didn’t quite understand.
“Summer, did you actually see your parents’ bodies?” Liza asked.
I could picture them clearly. A bloody, mangled mess. The death in their gazes. It was a vivid image in my memory. But I had never actually seen it. I had just imagined it. I had been haunted by the pictures in my head for years. “No. I didn’t.”
“What if they’re alive?”
I shook my head. “That’s not possible. I went to their funerals.”
“But what if they’re alive?” she said again.
Chapter 41
Wednesday