security guard. He was just doing his job. I’m behind you one hundred percent—more—but we both know I could never shoot.”
I took the gun and shoved it under the seat. “I understand.” And I did. I knew exactly what taking an innocent life felt like, and the permanent scars it left on you. I didn’t want that for Lucas.
Or for me. Not again.
We were quiet on our journey back to the hotel. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I doubted either of us could think straight. I started sifting through the facts in my mind, filing words and images and evidence into compartments in my internal database, but a tap on my shoulder interrupted me. Lucas held up the burner phone he’d bought at the convenience store.
“We have a voice mail,” he said, with a lilt in his voice.
My throat tightened. For a fleeting, heart-lifting instant, I thought of Hunter. But I knew there was only one person it could be.
Chloe. Sarah’s best friend.
Before we’d visited Sonja, we’d finally gotten in touch with Chloe’s mother, Daphne. She had agreed to give our number to her daughter, but there’d been no guarantees she’d call. Now we had another lead to chase. Maybe the final pieces of the Sarah puzzle would finally fall into place.
“Let’s give it a listen,” I said.
TEN
The next morning called for coffee and pancakes. At least, that’s what Chloe had in mind. The message she left was friendly, inviting me out to breakfast at her favorite café, located in a strip mall not too far from where she lived.
While Lucas slept last night, I’d listened to her message several times. The familiar cadence and timbre triggered more than just a feeling of pseudonostalgia. When I closed my eyes, I was actually able to relive happy moments from the past she shared with Sarah: flashes of laughter and play and whispers.
A part of me longed to remain in that state forever. But then the sun came up and it was time to see Chloe face-to-face. She knew Sarah better than anybody. Maybe she had some idea why someone—like Holland—might want to have her killed. But I knew there was a serious danger, that I was preprogrammed to kill Chloe, too. As I approached the café, I swallowed my fear before it consumed me.
A bell chimed as I walked through the door. I froze in the archway, but continued inside when no answering signal stirred the quiet yet deadly device inside me. A bakery display lined the wall on the right, near the cash register. Behind the counter, a machine hissed while a red-shirted worker put the finishing touches on a latte. The aromatic smell of fresh-roasted coffee permeated the entire room. Three college-aged kids sat at a long table in the back, textbooks open next to laptops. Of the ten other tables, only three were taken—the first by a couple, and the second by two women, one with a stroller next to her seat. Normal people on a normal morning. A place I could never fit in.
The third table, squished in a tight corner between the napkin station and the counter, only had space for two chairs. One of them held a young girl. She sat on the edge of the seat and glanced up from her book as soon as I entered.
Her long brown hair was shorter now, cut in a shiny, shoulder-length bob. But her heart-shaped face with the wide-set brown eyes, delicately arched eyebrows, and full lips: that face was the same one from my memory. From Sarah’s memory. Today she wore a V-neck coral sweater with skinny jeans and a pair of fleece boots.
She took a sip from a wide coffee cup, slopping a little over the side. As she grabbed for the napkin in her lap, the restaurant seemed to fade away, replaced with a cozy eat-in kitchen.
“I swear, Chloe, you may as well get a lip piercing, because you have a permanent hole in your lip.” We sat at the white tiled counter in my house. I reached into the cabinet and tossed her a dish towel.
She dabbed at the brown spot on her yellow sweatshirt before rolling up the dish towel and snapping it at me. “Yeah? Well, you trip a lot. Doesn’t mean you need a toe piercing.”
“Ewww.” We looked at each other before dissolving into giggles.
In real time, present-day Chloe blotted at the spot, gave up, and snuck another peek at me. Hopefully she could see the