I want to trust him. But I don’t know what to believe. I don’t even know if I can trust myself.
Bertram takes my arm. His grasp isn’t forceful, but it is firm. He’s telling me that he doesn’t trust Waylen, and that I should trust him instead.
“Where is Collette?” I ask.
“Don’t you have her?” Waylen says. The fear on his face tells me that he’s surprised by my question.
I think of the anger in Elodie’s voice on the phone when she realized I’d dragged her into more than she’d bargained for. She said the police were looking for me.
For a second, I allow myself to feel hope that Elodie is keeping Collette somewhere safe, somehow. Elodie didn’t turn Collette back over to Waylen. Maybe she’s still hidden somewhere. Or maybe, in desperation, Elodie gave her to the police, and that’s where Collette was when she called me. It’s not ideal, but maybe she’s drinking hot cocoa in a police station somewhere, biding her time until I’m found to be innocent and this whole misunderstanding is cleared up.
Maybe it is as simple as Waylen bringing me here because he was worried about me.
Maybe Annie is just toying with Bertram, the way shehas been doing for years. The blood in her apartment is fake. She spoofed Erin’s phone number. Maybe Skylar’s death really was just an accident. All of this was done to scare Bertram, and I was just an unfortunate pawn in her revenge scheme.
And then I hear my daughter scream.
Twenty-Four
I spin around, Bertram at one side and Waylen at the other, my two worlds standing in the same damp concrete space.
It wasn’t real, I tell myself.Collette isn’t here.
But then I hear it again. “Mom!” she cries. The color drains from Waylen’s face, and I know that his fear, at least, is real. Collette is the one thing that was never an act between us.
We both shout her name and take off running in the direction her voice was coming from. There’s darkness up at the top of this platform that leads to the next level. I’m only vaguely aware of Bertram running after us, saying words I’m not able to hear over the rush of blood in my ears.
“Collette!” I scream.
“Where are you?” Waylen shouts, cupping his hands to project his voice.
We’re still running when Bertram snags my arm, causing me to tumble backward against his chest. I struggle as he coils his arms around me, keeping me from running. “Let go of me!” I demand.
“It’s a trap!” he insists.
But I’m thinking of Skylar’s dead body, and of the blood in Erin—Annie’s—apartment. The woman who may have done these things has my daughter. I do everything I know to force Bertram to let go. Elbow him, stomp on his heel, bite him. But he’s still winning, dragging me away from whatever is waiting for me in the darkness at the top of this platform.
Waylen is still running, and then I hear the loud crack. Even as I tell myself it can’t be what I think it is, that I’m mistaken, I know that it was a gunshot. I can smell the gunpowder.
Blood puddles out onto the concrete. I can’t tell where it’s coming from or if he’s still breathing. My breath hitches.
Bertram has lifted me off the ground now and is running for the exit, no matter how I fight him. Through my haze, I realize that he’s just saved my life. I was going to be shot next.
There’s a metallic rattle, like chains coming loose. And then the security cage slams down before us, right as we are coming up to the exit.
Bertram sets me down only so he can grasp at the bars and try to shake them loose.
There’s a clap. Then another.
We both spin around to see the woman coming down from the top of the platform, sidestepping Waylen’s body as she does.
I know her as Erin Casimir. But the sneer on Bertram’s face confirms what I’ve already come to learn: This is Annie. The elusive ex-fiancée who he claims has been stalking him for years.
“Thank you for keeping things interesting,” she tells me. “When I hired you, all I wanted was for you to take the bait I set out. Bertram would be implicated in Skylar’s murder and go to prison.”
I want to lunge at her, to throw her to the ground and demand that she pay for what she’s done to Waylen and that she give me my daughter. But logic—frustrating as it is—comes flooding back to me, and I know that I’m of no use to Collette if I’m dead. And if Waylen is still alive, he needs me to find a way out of this so that I can get him help. If I run to him, she’ll put a bullet in my back for sure.
So I tamp down my rage. “Why did you do it?” I ask. “Why hire us when you could have just filed a police report yourself when Skylar was killed?”
