Not Hailey.
She’s alive.
She’s okay.
Those three short sentences breathe life back into my system. I focus on Broadway. On the frenzy in his eyes searching mine. He’s still in my face, too close for comfort, still gripping the back of my head.
“It’snotHailey,” he denotes. “You hear me?”
I nod once, taking a deep centering breath. Hailey’s alive. It’s not her body.
“Who?” I grit out, a raw throb in my teeth from clenching my jaw. “Who was with Matthews?”
“His daughter,” Vaughn says as Broadway steps aside, offering me a shred of breathing room. “She’s the second body.”
“The coroner estimates they’ve been dead about a week,” Ryder adds, loosening his grip on my back.
I glare at him over my shoulder. “You should’ve fucking led with that.”
“Ididbut you didn’t listen.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Hailey’s not with Vaughn.
She never got home.
She never reached the hiding place.
Unless... unless Matthews got killed on his way back from dropping her off. Maybe it was just a car accident. Maybe she’s fine and Vaughn’s trying to fabricate a murder to pin on me so I can’t get my hands on Hailey ever again.
My attention focuses on Vaughn’s narrowed eyes studying my reaction. “You and I need to talk.”
His index finger trembles on the trigger of his gun, barrel aimed at my head. “I should fucking kill you right now.”
It takes a long symphony of heartbeats before he weighs the consequences and redirects his aim at my shoulder, to merely wound me if I make one false move. He angles his head toward the cop on his left.
“Cuff him.”
Cracking my knuckles, I hold my hands out. “Get on with it. We’re wasting time.”
3
HAILEY
SEVEN DAYS EARLIER
Silent tears stream down my face as the interstate whizzes by.
Matthews has been mostly quiet since he picked me up from Lakeside.
Fear pushed me to run once Nash parked his Pontiac in the parking lot and for the first time when it came to him, I trusted my fight or flight response.
The man in my flashback made me break out in metaphorical hives. The familiarity of his posture, his gestures, even his facial features, threw me off balance, but the gold signet glistening on his bloodied finger was what sealed the icy cold tendrils of dread around my heart.
I turned over the facts on our ride back from the depths of the forest and there was only one logical conclusion.
Nash lied to me.
