“Would that have been so terrible? You’re not tied up anymore.Iwouldn’t have to explain anything.Youwould.” I realize for the first time that I don’t need a weapon to scare him. I don’t even need the threat of his coworker, the bounty hunter, finding him again. “Why haven’t you told me to call the police? If all you care about is bringing a killer”—I trip a little over the word but push on—“to justice, then why wasn’t that the first thing you said?”
He’s glaring at me, and it takes him a moment to smooth the expression from his face. “Calling the police is just going to bring a whole lot more heat down on your mom.”
The frigid air hasn’t thawed in the slightest, but the cold that had been seeping into my bones recedes a little. “And you suddenly care about me and my mom, is that it? What exactly were you hired to do, and how much are you getting paid to do it?”
“Nothing if it doesn’t lead to your mom.” He swallows before continuing, his reluctance clear. “Finding your mom through conventional methods failed for nearly twenty years. I was hired to try unconventional ones.”
“You mean illegal ones.”
He doesn’t deny it. “I did what I had to do.”
Disgust ripples over me. “What happened to you, getting beaten and tied up, that’s what could have happened to my mom and me if we hadn’t gotten away—or worse. That’s what could still happen to my mom.” I will not let myself think that something like that has already happened to her. “All that so you could, what, pay off some student loans? Buy a car with a trunk that opens from the inside next time?”
Narrowing his eyes, he reaches into his back pocket, and I leap back until I see it’s only his wallet he grabbed. I instinctively catch it when he tosses it to me.
“Open it.”
The leather is buttery smooth in my hands. Inside, I find his driver’s license, his Penn State student ID, a handful of other cards, and tons of concert ticket stubs. But I also find pictures, dozens of them, all featuring the same older woman with Malcolm’s dark skin and deep-set eyes. He’s in a lot of the photos with her. In one, he’s blowing out five candles on a homemade birthday cake the woman is holding, and in another, he’s standing in a cap and gown while the much-frailer-looking woman beams up at him. The most recent photo is of him planting a kiss on her cheek as she lies in what is clearly a hospital bed.
“That’s Gran. She took me in when I was six. She’s the reason I’m in college. When she got sick, I lost my scholarship, taking care of her, and when she needed more, I took a job to find a woman accused of killing someone, and I made damn sure I found her.”
He’s still glaring at me, almost daring me to find fault with his motives. “You think I would have signed on if I knew I was gonna end up in a trunk, probably on my way to a shallow grave somewhere?”
“But you were fine securing that fate for my mom and me? Ignorance is not the same as innocence.”
He grits his teeth. “No, are you even listening? I didn’t know about you. I didn’t know anything about your mom beyond what I read in the police report or found online. A name and some pictures, a bunch of random facts, and that’s it.” He waits for me to lean back and slow my breathing. “I was supposed to send a notification when I found her, but I hesitated when I”—he pauses—“found out aboutyou.And that’s when our friend showed up at my place, threatening to kick my teeth in if I didn’t give him everything I had….” His voice fades. “You and your mom were gone when we got to your house. He dragged me in with him, thought I could find something on your computer. I didn’t. I wouldn’t even go in your room, so he grabbed it for me.”
That’s when I realize he thinks he’s giving me an excuse, something that exonerates him.
“So you just waited in the hall while he ransacked my room and brought you my laptop? I guess that gave you just enough time to steal that photo of me and my mom I found in your pocket.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I just…didn’t want him to have it.”
My voice is ice-cold. “You led him to the motel.”
“He would have killed me if I hadn’t. I hacked into traffic and security cameras, and it took a couple days, but there are only so many places to hide.”
“And my mom? Did you tell him where to find her too?”
He shakes his head, his eyes so close to mine. “I don’t know where she is. I thought she was here with you. That’s the truth.”
The problem isn’t that I think he’s lying to me anymore. I believe him. And if he doesn’t know where my mom is, then I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
“Could you find her, like you found me?”
“Honestly? The only reason she was found this time is—”
“Because of me. I’m the one who created the dating profile for her and uploaded that photo.” I blink away the sting in my eyes when I feel Malcolm’s gaze, but he doesn’t look away.
“What?” I say.
“I wasn’t lying. The news story told you the same thing Idid.”
No, he wasn’t, but parroting a story doesn’t make it true, and my expression says as much.
Flinging his arms out as much as his cracked-if-not-broken ribs will allow, Malcolm says, “Then what? That’s all I’ve got.” He gestures back toward the office. “I tell you the truth. You don’t want it, which, hey, I get—it’s not a good truth. So I give you news footage saying the exact same thing and you still don’t want it. And that wasn’t even an old story, that’s from like five years ago and it hasn’t changed. It’s not gonna change, so—” His voice chokes off as I step right into him.
“Five years ago? Are you sure?”
