“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Zane responds.
Dutch grunts. “What does that mean?”
“It’s what I said. There were no shells. No tire tracks. No footage.”
“No footage?” I lean forward. “Redwood Prep has cameras everywhere.” I also saw J looking intently at her phone when I walked into the chem lab. She was watching live footage of that infamous parking lot behind the school. I have a hunch that she saw something important.
“Whoever it was and whatever happened,someonecleaned it up. I’m talking squeaky clean,” Zane says.
“You sound a little impressed,” Sol notes.
“I’m just wondering if these are the same people who took the girls. If we can get in touch with them…”
“The girls are different.” Dutch’s fingers tighten around the steering wheel. This isn’t the first time one of our parents forcibly separated him from Cadence, which is probably why he’s handling this so well. “Someone sent Jinx footage of Cadey and Grey being kidnapped. They intentionally left breadcrumbs for us.”
“You think Jinx has footage of tonight?” Sol wonders.
“I doubt it.”
That reminds me. I need to get my hands on Jinx’s hard drive and do some digging.
The fact that Jinx was the only one with a video of the kidnapping irks me. Now that I know Mom has the girls, I’m starting to think the scene of Cadence and Grey being forced into a grey van was fabricated.
“You know what’s weird? The last text we got from Jinx is that she would meet us soon.” Sol fishes his phone from his pocket and reads Jinx’s text. “‘Hello, Princes of Redwood. Did you get my gift? This secret keeper is ready to lay out all her cards. Why? Because I have something you want and you have something I need. You don’t know me yet, but soon, I’ll be closer than your next secret. See you soon, Jinx.’” Sol looks up from his phone. “Has she gotten in touch with any of you?”
A confession springs to my lips, but I hold it back.
“Not since Mom took Cadey. Her app is offline too.” Dutch flicks the indicator and turns off the freeway.
“She’s hiding something,” Zane guesses.
Dutch shakes his head. “Jinx is always hiding something, but she’s never gone silent before.”
“She’s never dealt with the yakuza before either,” Zane points out. “Gossiping about teenagers screwing around is different than ratting out the mafia.”
“Maybe someone killed her because she got too close to the truth?” Sol whispers.
He’s wrong.
Jinx is alive and well and she’s keeping her promise.
She’s much closer to me than any of my secrets.
I inhale, and her lilac fragrance fills my nose. It must have rubbed off on me when I held her in my lap during the car ride.
It’s pleasing.
I close my eyes as my brothers discuss and let my memories of J take over. Her blonde hair. Her blue-green eyes. Her mouth parting as she panted for me.
I sink farther into the back seat, my breath thickening as I remember her fingers curling in my shirt. Her eyes begging me to save her. Her hand struggling in my grip as I restrained her. The thrum of her pulse hammering under my thumb, faster, faster, moving closer to bliss and to death.
Her life hangs on a knife’s edge.
Pleasure and pain.
