her off that I knew anything about the investigation. With true sympathy, I just said, “That must have been hard.”
“It was awful. I was away the weekend of the fire, so I didn’t know anything and I couldn’t help him at all,” she said, her voice breaking. “And I couldn’t help Sarah.” At least the people who’d gone after Edgar wouldn’t be targeting Chloe. She had no idea how lucky she was.
I suggested we order, and she waved a waitress over. While we waited for our food, the conversation shifted into more comfortable territory. As she filled me in on little details of her life, speaking in these long, rushed sentences that I suddenly remembered, I fell in love with Sarah’s best friend all over again. When she asked for the check, I wanted to steal it away from the waitress. Just so Chloe would stay a little longer.
But I knew that wouldn’t happen: not now, not ever. And I had no right to ask.
“Sorry about this, but I have to go,” she said, putting her wallet in her purse. “I have a huge chem test tomorrow and study group is in ten minutes. I need to pull at least a B if I have any hope of improving my average.”
She slid out of her chair and I rose. I reached out to shake her hand one last time, but she ignored it and gave me a warm hug instead.
“It was so nice to meet you. Please keep in touch, okay?” she said as she pulled away.
“I’d like that,” I said.
The words tasted bitter, especially when her expression brightened. As much as I longed to stay in touch, I knew I would never dare contact Chloe again.
Chloe bit her lip as if considering something, then went ahead and blurted it out. “This might sound weird, but . . . you remind me a little of Sarah. Mannerisms, or, I don’t know. Something. When I talked to you, I almost felt like a piece of her was still here.” She shook her head, her laugh rueful. “I told you it would sound crazy.”
“Not at all,” I whispered.
Sarah, me. The same, and yet so utterly different. One alive, one a re-creation. Like Frankenstein’s monster.
Her eyes widened as she stared at me, a strange expression crossing her face. For a moment, I thought she had figured it out. That I was Sarah, or what remained of her. A giddy eagerness made me lean forward. She knew. She could tell. And if Sarah’s best friend could tell, then maybe that meant—
Chloe smiled briefly, rubbed my arm, and said again, “It was great to meet you.” Then she turned and hustled toward the door without looking back.
I slumped back into my chair. I felt so stupid, thinking that there was some kind of connection between us, that even for a moment I could claim Sarah’s close friend as my own. But my self-pity gave way to determination when my thoughts turned to Montford.
My heart broke when I thought about how things might have been different if she’d stayed there. Maybe she would have been safe. But why would she abandon it so soon, especially when a full scholarship was on the line?
As soon as I saw Chloe drive away, I left the café and headed to the dollar store where Lucas was waiting. As I walked toward the end of the strip mall, I saw an RV creep past. I followed it with my eyes. I was pretty sure I’d seen it once before, on our way over from the motel. I slowed down to scan its license plate. What if Holland had found us?
Data retrieval . . .
Scanning and storing a stream of images was a useful skill, I had to admit. In a moment, the RV’s license plate would appear in my mental log.
Match.
A time stamp on the photo put my initial RV sighting at ten minutes before I met Chloe. As the RV idled at a stoplight, I kept walking toward the store, with the certainty I was under surveillance. Lucas was standing in front of a magazine rack, pretending to read an issue of Us Weekly.
“Is that RV still circling the block?” Lucas asked.
Straight to business.
“I just saw it,” I said grimly. “When did you notice it?”
“About fifteen minutes after I got here,” he replied. “It’s passed this way every five minutes or so after that.”
“Damn,” I breathed.
“There’s more,” Lucas said, returning the tabloid to the rack. “I caught a quick