CHAPTER
SIXTY-SEVEN
Andi remainedpoised to act when Duke said, “You don’t have to do this, Jack.”
The desert went silent.
Even the light seemed to hesitate.
Jack? The bus driver? He was behind this?
Her pulse pounded in her ears.
But the pieces fit. She thought this man’s voice had sounded familiar. That was because the voicewasfamiliar.
“You finally put it together,” Jack finally said. “Took you long enough.”
The light snapped off.
Darkness rushed in, but her eyes still burned, bright shapes breaking and reforming as the glare danced behind her lids. She blinked hard, trying to clear it, trying to see him.
She couldn’t.
Only his shape. His outline. A presence where the light had been.
“It’s over now.” Duke’s voice cut clean through the dark. “We know who you are. And we have Rupert.”
Jack laughed, the sound short and sharp. “You don’t have Kate yet. Let me go—or she dies.”
Andi’s chest tightened.
Kate.
Not Rupert. Not the team.
The woman he still held.
“You’re going to leave her there to die anyway.” Andi’s words came steady, even as her pulse kicked hard. “The same way you left Gina to die. Cold and alone in that cabin.”
Something shifted. She heard the hitch in his breath. The smallest catch, gone almost before it registered.
“But Gina escaped,” Andi said. “Someone found her.”
Silence.
Her mind raced, grasping for the edge she needed. She stepped into it before doubt could stop her.
“What?” she said. “You didn’t know about Gina?”
“You’re lying.” Jack’s words came fast. Too fast.
“No, I’m not.” Her heart slammed against her ribs, but she pressed on. “The police know who you are. Gina led them back to the cabin where you kept her. They found evidence.”
“That’s impossible!” Jack shouted.
Andi knew she’d planted doubt—a fracture, a question he hadn’t prepared for.
More silence stretched.
