“I think she got away. And that means she got to my house somehow. And she had to be staying somewhere. I mean, she told me she was watching me for ten days. She came alone, Donovan.”
I get up from my stool, grab my jacket, and head down the hallway, grabbing my keys from the little dish on the table by the front door.
Donovan follows me. “Where are you going?”
“Home. I’m gonna go see if I can figure this out. We need answers and if you’re not gonna put her under again, we’re not gonna find them here.”
The drive back to my shop takes almost two hours. I pull into the driveway and the familiar sound of gravel under the tires of my truck is soothing for some reason. After I turn the truck off, I just sit there for a while, looking at the front of the shop in the dark. It’s starting to rain again. Figures. It’s always fucking raining when shit goes wrong.
I have a little shed at the end of the driveway, just off to the right of my shop. That would’ve been my first guess about where she was staying if I didn’t have it locked up so tight. It’s where I keep my motorcycle and this neighborhood doesn’t have the lowest crime statistics.
I get out, shove my hands into my jacket pocket, and shrug my shoulders up like this might defend me from the thick drizzle. Then I turn and look down the driveway and start walking out of instinct.
She would be somewhere close, but not here.
I’m only walking for a few minutes when I see it.
Her truck. Black, like Adam’s. But it’s old now. And it looks like it’s been through hell. I circle it first, warily glancing around to see if anyone’s watching me. It’s nearly nine at night, but this neighborhood is mostly industrial. So people come here for work, then go somewhere else at night. So there’s no one that I can see.
There’s a dent in the passenger door and her tailgate is being held up with a bungee cord. But it’s not locked. I slide into the driver’s side and close the door, even though the dome light overhead doesn’t work or is set to the off position.
There are clothes on the passenger seat. A pair of jeans and another flannel—holes in the wrists for her thumbs. That makes me smile. And there’s a dried-up magnolia flower hanging from her rearview mirror.
I start searching. I’m unsure of what I’ll find, but I need to go through every inch of this truck. Every piece of garbage is a clue.
A receipt from McDonalds. She paid cash with a fifty-dollar bill. So she’s not broke.
Mud on the floormats. Which could mean she’s been in the woods. But then again, there’s lots of gravel driveways around here.
Lots of spare change. One of the coins is a British pound. I close my eyes and feel sad about that for a moment. Because however she got to the UK, and whatever she was doing there, none of it was good.
What I don’t find is any ID. No passport, either.
And after I climb into the back cab and don’t find anything more useful, I’m just about to give up when I get an idea.
I lean forward and pull down the hidden arm rest between the seats.
Then I hold my breath for nearly an entire minute because I can’t believe my own eyes.
I find a journal.
I just stare at it because I want the answers to be in there so bad and once I open it up and look, I’ll know either way if they are.
Indie was always writing in journals. Donovan made her do that. He wanted her to have a place to put her thoughts where she knew they were safe.
I pick it up and stuff it under my jacket, get out of the truck, jog back to my place, and go inside. I don’t even bother going upstairs, even though the shop is frigid. I just turn on a light, sit down at my little work table, open it up and start reading…
3/3
Keep Out.
These are my thoughts.
This is my mind.
And YOU do not belong here.
I get it baby girl. I really do. But I’m sorry, sweets. I do belong here.
So I turn the page and keep going.
Nathan St. James was the boy next door…
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - DONOVAN
PRESENT DAY
I sit in the kitchen for a long while after McKay leaves, just leaning my forearms on the island with my head in my hands. Thinking, thinking, thinking.
Trying to force the past twenty years make sense.
I made promises to Indie when she was ten.
I promised her Adam and McKay. I promised her a home. I promised her I’d be there. That we would all be there and she would never be alone again.
But I was a kid. Am I really still responsible for a promise I made when I was fifteen years old?
Haven’t I done my best? Didn’t I come when they called? Didn’t I fix her?
A little, at least?
I want to believe that my influence helped her. It had to have helped.
But if I take a good long look at how this whole thing has played out, I would have to admit that Indie was never fixable.
She was someone’s plan.
I was not the chosen one, Carter was. Our father made this clear the year we turned eight. I was the copy. I was the disposable twin. I was the backup.
Carter was the only one who mattered.
Until he didn’t.
Until he started to scare people.
Until he needed to be dealt with.
Did Carter do this to Indie? Did he escape and then come back for revenge? Is this some elaborate plan to get even with me for taking his place when it should’ve been the other way around?
Or was Indie his girl from the very beginning?
She never said his name when I questioned her. She never said, Carter did this to me. But I have always suspected. I could feel him in there. In her mind. It was like he left fingerprints.
PSYOPS was done with Indie by the time she arrived on the island. Not as in her mind control was complete. But as in she was not a suitable candidate the way they had hoped. She was rebellious and tough and those were always necessary traits when you train up a Company child to kill people. But she was also… wrong. There was something wrong with her. Everything they did to her—she wasn’t ever scared. And it wasn’t a ploy, either. She just doesn’t understand fear the way most people do.
She doesn’t feel things the way most people do.
My grandfather didn’t think she’d sell at the auction. But not only did she sell, she was the highest-priced girl that whole night. People were calling in proxy bids from all over the globe to bid on Indie Anna Accorsi. What all those other men were planning on doing with her, I didn’t know. Nor did I care.
But I should’ve cared.
That should’ve been my first clue that everything about this girl—from her appearance, to her attitude, to the secrets she was keeping in that little vault inside her mind—they all pointed to Carter.
Because I see it so clearly now. I see what happened that night we were pulled apart wasn’t the end of Carter Couture.
It was the beginning.
And everyone who bid on Indie that night knew it before I did.
I truly did think I could save her.
But I see my mistake now.
I understand what it takes to save a Company killer like Indie.
It takes more than I ever gave her.