Page 56 of Heartless Legacy

Don’t get me wrong, the leads have been good, but they haven’t beenthe best. My eye for talent was supposed to make my finds superior to the other recruiters. I’ve been okay with living down to expectations.

My office door swings open without a knock. The assholes in the doorway are two of the only five people who would barge in like this. This should be fun. I settle back in my chair, fingers laced together behind my head.

“So you’re back?”

Stupid questions get stupid answers. “Nope. I’m an astral projection. My spirit’s here, but my body is somewhere else.”

Finn steps closer. “I’m happy to arrange for your spirit to permanently leave your body.”

“Get on with it. That means I won’t have to entertain stupid questions.”

Holden shakes his head and says, “We’re not here to separate spirits or body parts. We heard you were back from your sabbatical and wanted to see for ourselves.”

We’re notsee for ourselvesfriends. Hearing about me from the school rumor mill should’ve been enough. They’re here about Thea. That means they’ve seen her and their reunion was a huge disappointment.

They need to get used to the feeling. She worked her way back from the first attack. Some of her resilience was because she didn’t remember that night. But what she’s been through this time… She remembers it all, and that kind of torture and abuse changes a person. She barely sleeps and when she does, she wakes in the middle of the night, thinking her freedom is an elaborate mind fuck.

“As you can see, I’m here. When you’re done eye fucking me, you can leave. I have a lesson to prepare.”

Finn steps closer, flipping through the stack of papers on my desk, and says, “Thea’s back.”

I put my hand on top of the papers, yanking them from his reach. It’s a statement, but I hear the question in his tone. Is it a coincidence that my return coincides with hers, or did I know where she’s been all along?

Thea and I agree that the sooner our story leaks, the better. Keeping it a secret only gives Malcolm time to throw a different narrative out there. He won’t admit he took her, but we don’t want him to have a chance to double down on the abandonment scenario already out there.

“I know. I was her ride into town.”

Now Finn’s flipping his knife in his hand. “You’ve known where she was all this time and didn’t tell us?”

“That’s what you heard. That’snotwhat I said.”

Holden interrupts Finn’s next emotional outburst. “You were her ride from where?”

“The courthouse in Riverside County.”

“Riverside county? Isn’t that Palm Springs?” He looks at Finn and shakes his head as if my words aren’t making sense. “I searched all the traffic cameras in the state. There was no record of Thea in Palm Springs.”

I’m sure he did. This will be the first test of the work Ryker and his team put in. “Did you search the courthouse or the jails? Because she’s been bouncing around between corrections facilities for the last six months, waiting for a trial.”

“For what?” Holden asks. “Littering? An unpaid traffic ticket?”

Finn is staring at me, and I know he’s putting it together. Thea told me he knows her secret about Michael. He obviously never shared it with Holden or littering, and traffic tickets wouldn’t be the first things that came to mind.

My gaze flicks between them as I say, “Someone dropped an anonymous tip that she’s the one who mugged Michael Pearse.”

Finn snaps, “Are you suggesting we had something to do with that?”

“I’m not suggesting anything, but since we’re talking about it, you do have a habit of fucking with her. Dropping a bogus tip so she couldn’t complete her challenge isn’t a farfetched idea.”

“We didn’t.” Finn says, through clenched teeth.

I’m almost certain they didn’t know it was happening. That doesn’t absolve them and I don’t trust them enough to tell them I know who did. They’re a part of the organization that runs the facility she was in and their third member’s father is the one who took her.

In my eyes, that makes them just as guilty as Malcolm.

Chapter 36

Thea

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