ahead of time where I’d be taken. But now they were trying to capitalize on it.
Or at least this guy was.
Were the two of them even talking to each other at this point? Were they deliberately trying to confuse me? Playing me off of each other?
For that matter, were these two even in the same location? I had no way of knowing.
The only sure thing was that I couldn’t give in to this latest demand. Not even for Eve. It was one thing to compromise my own safety. It was another to allow them access to the Bureau’s servers. That would put far too many other people in jeopardy. And if I knew Eve at all, I knew she’d back me up on this. There was simply no way.
But the Engineer didn’t have to know that.
I’m stuck here, I wrote. How do you suggest I do this?
You have six hours, he answered. Already, that damn timer of his had popped up again and started counting down.
I need more than that, I wrote.
This is not a negotiation, he told me. In six hours, we find our own way to disappear. Then Eve stays put and she can starve to death while you look for her. Think on that.
A bolt of rage shot through me. I forced myself to set down the phone rather than hurl it across the room. Then I picked up the mug I’d been drinking from and threw that instead. It smashed into a shower of blue shards and coffee, dripping down the wall by the door. And no, I didn’t clean it up. Or care.
I took up the phone again.
Please give me more time, I wrote.
Silence.
Hello? We need to talk about this.
Still nothing. He’d said all he was going to say, and I was left there with no more than the sound of my own shaky breathing. Clearly, the next move was mine to make.
But I had no idea what it was going to be.
CHAPTER 74
AT AROUND TEN, Billy came by. He had an FBI duffel full of my clothes, along with my bike, my indoor trainer, and everything else on my list, with one exception.
“No laptop?” I asked.
“You’re officially off-line as long as you’re here,” he said. “I know that’s like cutting off your oxygen, but you understand.”
There was so much I couldn’t say, and even more on my mind. I wasn’t even sure if I should feel guilty for hiding so much from Billy. It was like a complex moral equation and I didn’t have the skills, much less the presence of mind or the time, to balance it out. All I could do was take this one thing at a time.
“What about my family?” I asked.
“I went by your folks’ place this morning. They’re concerned, of course, but they’re doing okay,” he said. “What about you? How are you holding up?”
“Never better,” I said. Billy didn’t even try to smile at that. “Okay, I’m horrible,” I told him. “I’m going crazy in here. I want to cry and kill someone at the same time.”
He nodded with the calm understanding of a Bureau vet, even if he didn’t know all the particulars of my personal hell that morning.
“Listen,” he said, “I can’t tell you much, but since part of this has gone public, there’s no reason to keep it from you.”
He navigated his phone to a page and handed it to me. What I saw was the Globe’s website, with their own version of the CNN story from that morning. The headline this time was TWEETED FBI KIDNAP CONFIRMED.
“Oh, my God!” I said. I tried to seem genuinely surprised and took a minute to scan the article for anything I didn’t already know. Apparently, the FBI had held a press conference to confirm Eve’s kidnapping, but they weren’t sharing any details about the case.
“We figured we might as well own it,” Billy said. “It wasn’t a bell we could unring.” Then he thumbed toward the door. “But come on. I can at least show you around before I go.”
“Really?” I wasn’t even expecting to get out of the apartment that day.
“Don’t get too excited,” he told me. “It’s the world’s shortest tour.”
The hall outside my room was as empty as it had been the night before. All the closed doors looked exactly alike except for the fire exit, which had an alarmed crash bar and a surveillance camera mounted above.
“Your ID card will get you into your apartment, and into the admin office during business