There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Hello? Ava? Officer Foster. I need him.”
“He’s gone,” she says, and her voice hitches. “He just fucking up and left, Sawyer. For no reason.”
“Left on vacation?”
“No,” she says, and her voice hitches again, an uncharacteristic show of emotion. “His apartment is empty. He’s gone-gone. I don’t know where he went.”
“What did youdo, Ava?”
But she doesn’t answer me, she just hangs up.
My chest grows tighter, like something is ratcheting a vise around my lungs. Before, our destruction was mutual. If I pressed charges, Dalton would find a way to leak every photo and video he’d taken with or without my knowledge. And he must have known that if he released what he had, I’d come after him through Officer Foster.
But I don’t even know what to do now. I climb into my car, and my breath comes sharp and shallow.
Dalton’s going to hold my naivety over my head forever, and I’ve got no way to fight back. I don’t even knowhowto fight back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Logan
Idon’t realize how finely tuned I’ve become to Sawyer until I’m trying to listen to my manager and agent on a conference call and the front door of her house opens. It’s not so much that I hear the door—because it’s pretty far from the living room—but that I sense her presence. Something in the air shifts, which is a real mindfuck to be conscious of when it feels like this phone call is already tipping my world on its axis.
“Are we sure?” I ask for what seems like the fiftieth time. My forehead is cradled in my palm, and I’ve got my elbow on my knee. I’m staring at the wood on the floor, trying to make sense of what I’ve been hearing for the last few minutes.
“Look, wecanask for a DNA test. As I said, our investigators went to them, saw all their paperwork, photos, and so on before we called you. They’re convinced this claim is legit based on what they saw and what they were given.”
“Okay,” I say, and I release a deep sigh. “Hold tight. I don’t know what I want to do.”
“It’s a great human interest story,” my manager says. “Someone will pick this up if we don’t deal with it.”
“Do you think they want money?” I ask, and I glance up as Sawyer comes into the room. Even as my mind is spinning, I clock that she also doesn’t look like herself. Stiff. And she doesn’t immediately come to sit beside me on the couch. When we’re alone, she never keeps her distance. It’s one of my favorite things.
“Who knows?” my agent says. “The fact that you’re rich and famous definitely complicates the dynamic.”
“I’ll be in touch,” I say.
“Soon,” my manager says. “Like, real soon, Logan. If moneyiswhat they want, they’ll find someone to talk to.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, and I scan Sawyer, trying to figure out what’s going on with her.
After I hang up, Sawyer and I stare at each other in silence for a minute. Rather than asking her what’s wrong or waiting for her to ask me, I decide I’ll just tell her.
“After all these years, it seems I’ve finally got family coming out of the woodwork,” I say.
“Your dad?” Her eyes widen.
“No, that one remains a mystery. My grandparents—my mom’s parents and her younger brother. Apparently, the brother has a son—my cousin, I guess—and he’s into hockey. With the attention you and I got on this last run of away games and with the way I’ve been playing even better than normal, I guess the kid mentioned to his dad that I had the same last name as them.”
“And it’s them?” She comes to the couch, but she doesn’t sit right beside me.
“Seems like, according to my manager. They always send a team to check this shit out before going into damage control. There’s smoke, but is there fire?”
“Wow,” Sawyer breathes out, and it’s the right response, but it doesn’tfeellike her. “How are you feeling?”
“Skeptical,” I admit. “Before I met Chayton and his dad, I would have done anything to have a real family.Myfamily. Instead of feeling like a burden, I’d have been wanted. Now? My mom was alone, so alone that when she died, there was no one down as a contact for me. If they were good people, wouldn’t she have put them down?”
