The bag or sack or whatever it was that Tristan had put over her head was thick and heavy. Her own breath bounced back at her—sour, adrenaline-tinged, hot—making her sweat.
During the struggle, Tristan had somehow managed to bind her hands together in front of her.
Tight, thin. Zipties, most likely.
She tensed her wrists. Only ended up with more pain. Pain that numbed her hands.
“Help!” The sound was impossibly loud. Whatever leaked through the thick fabric rebounded off the trunk lid, echoed back at her. Ivy didn’t care. “Help!”
She needed to get out.
Not for her.
For Abby.
Abby, who had been loyal, been by her side forever. Before everything. After everything.Kneweverything.
“Help!”
She tried to kick, but the trunk was too small to extend her legs. Only managed to bang her knees.
“Help!”
Ivy screamed until her throat was raw and she was out of breath. She waited, then screamed some more.
She recalled a true crime podcast in which a young girl in a similar situation as her—bound, hooded, in the trunk of a car—remembered each turn the car made. Later, when the girl somehow managed to acquire a cell phone and call for help, she’d told the police exactly where to go.
This had saved her life.
It was also impossible.
Ivy didn’t know if they were going left, right, up, or down. They could be in a goddamn spaceship heading toward the moon for all she knew.
Not that it would make a difference.
Tristan was going to kill her.
He was going to torture her for the information he wanted and then kill her. He’d planned all of this. The irony...himplanning to captureher.
“You done?!”
Tristan had to shout from the front seat, and even then, Ivy barely heard him.
No, she wasn’t done.
“Help!” She banged her knees. “Help!”
They made a turn—right?—and Tristan said, “You can still save yourself, Ivy. Just tell me where the laptop is.”
All this for a laptop.
Sixteen dead for a fucking laptop, two more than the ominous email had threatened. Twenty-seven minutes, that was in the email, too, and she hadn’t seen the pattern, hadn’t recognized the significance.
The fucking laptop which contained Gene’s half of the Riemann hypothesis. Did that mean that Tristan had his father’s half all along? How?Where?
She shook her head.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that her dad was right; it was too dangerous.
