for and they know how to see nothing.
I step into the back hallway just as Angela strides through the guarded double doors, having gotten word of my arrival. “May I help you?” Her eyes glitter with contempt, ringed with heavy slashes of black eyeliner, the dark braid coiled over her shoulder. Today’s dress is embroidered blue silk, her silver heels picking up the gleaming threads.
“Call them,” I say.
“Who?”
“Who do you think?”
She stares at me for a second, then pulls out her phone. “It’s me,” she says. I hear a man’s voice on the other end. It could be Chris. It could be the police. It could be Johan or Davor. “She’s here.”
The voice raises.
“Tell them I’m leaving,” I say, “and I have a going away present.” I don’t bother negotiating for my father’s safety or for Chris’s. I know well enough that when people care about money, they’ll do anything to get it and anything to keep it. There’s no sense inviting more drama once they’ve been paid.
“Prove it,” Angela says.
I unzip the bag and show her the cash. She reaches for it but I slick the bag closed and fasten the tabs together with the lock. When she opens her mouth to argue, I take the phone from her hand. “It’s a million dollars and there’s a combination lock,” I say into the receiver. I don’t know if it’s Johan or Davor, and I don’t care. “If the bag is damaged when you get here, Angela stole from you.”
Angela’s indignation is replaced with pure rage when I hang up, text the combination to the number she’d just called, then toss the phone on the floor and stomp on it, shattering the screen with my heel.
“Good luck,” I tell her.
“Wait. You—”
I waited three years for my father’s appeal. Three years to convince myself it was all some sort of misunderstanding. Yes, he had twenty million dollars in sequential bills stashed in suitcases, but maybe he had a good reason.
He didn’t.
So my father is paying the price for what he did, and if Trapper checks his mail, he’s likely to continue to pay for another twenty-two years.
Alex will pay forever.
But I’m done.
This is not my mess.
Not my secret.
Not my choice.
Not anymore.
BECAUSE HOLDEN IS SMALL but rich, the Holden City Airport is also small and rich. I park my Mercedes in the extended-stay lot, another overpriced automobile in a matching sea. I stroll inside and buy a one-way ticket to the first place that comes to mind. I pay with my credit card and show the agent my passport. I sign my name, Reese Carlisle. He tells me to have a safe trip.
Before passing through the security checkpoint, I meander through the concourse and stop at one of the shops to purchase a new set of clothes. A floral-print skirt. A peasant blouse. A pair of flip-flops that would be ten dollars elsewhere but cost sixty here. I don’t care. It’s my money. I earned it.
I stop in a bathroom and change. I throw away the blond wig and wash my face. An older lady dries her hands and spots me, then looks away. When she looks again, I realize my escape injuries are on display. The scuffed knees and elbows, bruises up and down my arms. But these aren’t scars. They’re badges.
I study myself in the mirror. I’m not the Reese Carlisle from before the scandal, not the Reese Carlisle after. Not Ella or Francine or Giselle. Not anybody’s business.
On my way to security I take out my phone and call the police. I tell them there’s a man handcuffed to a headboard who needs their help. I give them my address and hang up, turning off the phone and dropping it in the trash.
I place my duffel bag in the plastic bin and wait my turn to pass through the security gate. I know this routine, and the alarms stay silent as I step through. No threat here. The agent calls me forward and scans me with her wand, subtly tallying my injuries. She looks at my lonely bag when it rolls up, then back at me.
“Where you headed?”
“Yap,” I tell her.
She nods.
“It’s a fresh start,” I add.
“Okay.”
“I broke up with my boyfriend,” I throw in.
She eyes my bruises. “Good,” she says.
I take my bag and walk to the departure lounge. There are no disguises in this bag, just a few basic toiletries, a bathing suit, a couple changes of clothes. Everything else I can buy in Yap. Or Estonia.