Page 149 of One Last Chance

And then Axel’s words at the hospital when she asked him about Dillon.

“Told me how he’d found her out of the river. How he’d sexually assaulted her?—”

But shehadn’tbeen sexually assaulted. Just captured, and hunted.

“The answers are in the details, in the mistakes they make.”

“Flynn, want a burger?”

She looked at her mother, standing on the deck. Sweet of the Mulligans to invite them over today—probably Eve’s idea.

“Look at the first victim . . .”

The first person kidnapped, but not killed, a woman nearly fifteen years older than Aven. According to Flynn’s memory, she’d been abducted a week before Aven went missing.Jennifer Greene.

Flynn met her mother’s gaze. “I need to get home.”

Her mother seemed more vibrant today, wearing a sundress, glasses, her honey-brown hair cut short. She came down the deck stairs. “You sure?”

“Yes. I . . . I need to check something.” Flynn made to hug her mom, but her mother stopped her.

“Honey. Your dad and I are flying to Alaska in a week or so. We’d like you to come with us.”

Oh.She’d expected that, but, “Mom, I have work?—”

“Work is not life. Work is so you can live. There’s a difference.”

She sighed. “I know, Mom.”

“Do you? Because I fear the dark life you live. It’s like you and Kennedy are two sides of the same coin. She seeks the light . . .”

“And I seek the darkness? Please. Who was the one who didn’t do drugs? Who finished college? I didn’t run away from my life.”

Flynn didn’t know where those words came from, her tone turning sharp.

Her mother didn’t even flinch. “No, you didn’t. You embraced it—all the pain and fear and darkness—until you could master it.”

Flynn opened her mouth, closed it.

“But you can’t master it, can you? It’s mastered you. You’re so good at finding the monsters, as you call them, it has control of you.”

“What has control?”

“Pride.”

“Mom.”

“I’m just saying that you love being the one who can solve these nightmares. But it’s trapped you. You had a taste of freedom . . . Maybe you need to run to the light too. And maybe this is your last chance.”

Whatever. “I don’t live a dark life, Mom.” She gave her mom a hug. “Have a great time in Alaska. Kennedy will love seeing you.”

She headed up to the deck, to where Eve and Rembrandt sat at the table with Ashley. Danny set a plate of glistening burgers in the middle.

Her father came over. “You taking off?”

She frowned at him.

“You have that look. Same one I get when I’m fishing. Gotta reel in the whopper.”

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