“It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible. You taught me that.”
He scoffed. “I’ve been here three months. You don’t think I’ve gone over every square inch of this place?”
Ava’s heart lurched. “Three months?”
“Yes.”
“Dad . . .” Tears thickened her voice and she swallowed. “Why?”
“He wants to make me pay.”
“For what? What did you do to trigger this kind of hate?”
Her father shook his head and let out a long sigh. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, while you tell it, can you figure out a way to get my hands free?”
“He’s got cameras in here.”
“So? It’s not like he doesn’t expect me to try to get free, right?”
Her father stood and walked over to her. Easily. His movements were fluid and catlike. Exactly as she remembered him.
“You exercise every day, don’t you?”
“Not much else to do in here.”
“He’s not starving you. You get plenty to eat. He’s keeping you alive.” He’d always kept himself in exceptional shape. Being a captive of a killer hadn’t changed that.
“Yes. He has his reasons.”
“Which are?”
He gave her a ferocious look that morphed into one of such great sorrow, her lungs spasmed. “I think you know,” he said.
Ava swallowed hard. “He wants you to watch him torture me, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Why! What did you do to him?”
“I did my job!” His shout tightened her jaw and sent her heart rate into a gallop.
She took a steadying breath. “All right,” she said, her voice soft, controlled. “Then we have to figure out how to get out of here before he comes back. And if he’s watching and listening, I guess we’ll find that out soon enough.”
“Ava—”
She stood, cutting him off, and walked into the bathroom. It was a beautiful room with a spa-like feel that she’d normally relish lounging in. Right now, she wanted to rip it apart for something sharp. He followed her into the space. “Does he have cameras in here?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“No. At least not that I could find.”
“Good. Go back out there. We don’t want him wondering what we’re both doing in here.”
With an odd look in his eye, he backed up. At the door, he stopped. “You’re zip-tied, Ava.”
“But it’s not metal. Zip ties can be broken—or cut.” Her gaze roamed the area. “He left washrags and towels and soap. How thoughtful.”
“No razor, though.”
“Go figure.”
“Didn’t want me cutting my wrists, I guess. That would deprive him of his fun.”
The words were sarcastic but held a desperate edge that made her breath hitch. She couldn’t help herself. She walked to him, looped her bound hands around his neck, and hugged him. He bent his head and his breath shuddered against her cheek.
“I’ve missed you, Dad,” she whispered.
“I’ve missed you too. More than I can say.”
“All right. We’ve got to figure this out.” She stepped back and pressed her palms to her eyes. She had to think.
“How’d you figure it out?” he asked her. He returned to his seat on the bed.
“A lot of little things.” She paused in her perusal of the bathroom toilet and looked at him. “Tell me how you pulled it off,” she said. “Faking your death, I mean.”
“Tell me what you know.”
She drew in a deep breath, wondering how much time she had. She hit the highlights. When she came to the computer password and her confusion at her inability to find the right one, he shook his head.
“I know. I knew I was going to have to play dead for a while, but I wasn’t sure how long. So I changed how I created it.”
“That’s what I figured.” She shot him a sour look.
“But you still got in. You got the hints from the puzzle.”
“I did. Still don’t know what the blueprint was all about.”
“I just threw that in there. Thought it was kind of cool.”
“Well, that’s just awesome, Dad.”
“Yeah, I guess that was kind of stupid.” He stared at her, his eyes glinting. “But I thought it might throw off anyone else who might get their hands on it.” He paused and she studied the hinged toilet seat lid. “I can’t believe you figured it all out,” he finally said.
“You set it up so I would.”
“Not really,” he muttered. “I honestly didn’t expect you to do it that fast. I kind of thought I’d be dead by the time you put it all together. If you even went looking.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She ran her fingers over the hinges, studying the way the seat fastened to the bowl.
“That’s not what I meant. I thought I might have made it too hard for anyone to put the pieces together. Even you.”
“John showed me the video of your ‘fall’”—she wiggled her fingers in air quotes—“over the railing of the ferry. Caden spotted Nicolai putting the tracker in your bag just before you went over.”
He rubbed a hand over his chin, scratching the beard. “I didn’t know he’d followed me. I knew he was looking for me, but I didn’t know who he was. I had to find out and I couldn’t do that, being constantly on the run.”
“So you decided to fake your death?”
“Yeah. Didn’t work out quite like I’d hoped. I almost drowned trying to get the backpack off and to the oxygen tanks I had stashed in there.”
“But you didn’t. You made it to shore. I’m assuming you had a fake passport in the bag and used it to catch a plane home. You landed at JFK. I saw you on security footage. Then what?”
“I grabbed a cab,” he said, his rough voice familiar and dear to her heart. “I told him to take me to the worst part of town where I could find things I needed. I’d gone dark and needed to stay hidden. Seemed like a good place to do that. I was fine for a couple of months, discounting the paranoia I constantly felt—which I know now was well-placed. Nicolai was keeping an eye on me, waiting to make his move.”
She frowned. “Why do you think it took him so long?”
“He had to regroup, replan. I stayed with a group of homeless folks in New York for about four months. When nothing happened and no one found me, I figured I was in the clear and called John. Told him what was going on and asked him about your mom.” His eyes clouded. “How is she, by the way?”
“The same.” He nodded and looked at his hands for a moment. “Why John?” she asked. An idea formed, even as she listened to her father fill in the blanks. “Why couldn’t you trust me?”
“It wasn’t about trust, Ava. I was too afraid of leading him to you.” He sighed. “But he found you anyway.”
“He did, but not because of you. At least not directly.” She told him about the picture as she popped the lid from the toilet. Her heart thudded with the adrenaline crashing through her. “Help me break this. I need something sharp.”