“No, but I wanted to.” More than anything. “He was everything to me back then. Whenever I didn’t get a role, he encouraged me to keep trying, but I think… I think that it was all pointless; I was never meant to score any roles.” I wiped my eyes, today’s revelations settling down on my chest with an overwhelming weight.
“Why weren’t you meant to score any roles?” he asked quietly.
“Because they had other plans.”
“Eliot and Agatha?”
I nodded and took a long sip of wine. I could never afford the exquisite drinks Eliot and The Director had showered me with, and I was fine with that because it made it easier not to think of them whenever I had a drink.
“Is there a chance that Agatha was a member?” Hayden asked.
“I never saw women members, but Agatha always loved expensive things, and I remember thinking that it was odd how rich she was with such a short list of low-profile clients. Anyway, I didn’t say anything about the investigation to her or to her bodyguard. He tried to make me admit it, but you got here in time.”
Hayden shifted on the couch, avoiding my eyes.
“What is it?”
He put his empty wine glass on the table. “There’s a reason I haven’t spoken to you in the last couple of days. A few hours after I met with Eliot, the Chief called me to his office. He told me to stop the investigation immediately.”
There wasn’t a part of me that was surprised. “Did he explain himself?”
“He said I didn’t have any real leads to follow, and when I debunked that, he claimed there were more urgent cases piling up. When I pushed back and asked for examples, he finally admitted that the order had come from higher up, but he refused to give me names.”
“Can you really drop a case like that?”
“Nick’s case is easy to drop because no one saw him being kidnapped, and no one’s requesting ransom. Even with that video of him we found, who can say for sure that Nick hadn’t split town for a kinky porn career?”
It dawned on me how easy it must have been to make me disappear. Unlike Nick, my parents hadn’t gone to the police. My disappearance must have become irrelevant the second it happened.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” I mumbled.
“I don’t think I’ve heard you right.”
“Never mind.”
“Hey, I’m not giving up on this.”
I frowned at him. “What are you talking about? You just said—”
“What I said was thatofficiallythe investigation is dead, but I’m not giving up on saving Nick and whoever else they’re holding captive. Those monsters are hurting people. They hurtyou.”
“Don’t go on a crusade because of what happened to me ages ago.”
“Ages ago? It happened last week!”
“Please don’t yell at me.”
He rubbed his face. “I don’t understand you, Jonah, and believe me that I’m trying. Please make me understand. What happened when they took you?”
I crossed my arms, my skin prickling. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It very much does.”
“You won’t save the day, Hayden. Those people have more influence than you can ever imagine.”
“Because they’re rich? Rich people go to prison all the time—I’ve sent some there.”
He really didn’t get it, but it wasn’t his fault. I leaned forward to grab some old newspapers from the table. I flipped through the pages until I reached the political section, then pointed at a photo of a group of Republican senators. The article was about a bill they were trying to block. “I remember those two.”
