Page 110 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

There was a weather site open on one, in which a big red swath was swallowing whole the island she knew her mother was on.

There was Extreme’s WeWatch page showing Maverick live, about to go down an elevator shaft. Malinka’s page was dark. Mom’s LifeTracker listed her asunavailable. Meaning that her phone was dead.

Violet felt a notch of dread. Her mother hadneverbeen untraceable, unfindable, unreachable. It just wasn’t a thing that happened with her mom. She’d never called her mom and not reached her, never needed her when she wasn’t right where Violet expected her to be.

Instinctively she reached for her phone and called, though she knew it was probably futile. Predictably, it went straight to voicemail.

“Mom,” she said, “please call me.”

She felt an intense lash of fear and anger.

“This is your fault,” she said to Blake. “She’s therebecause of you.”

“You didn’t try to stop her, either,” he said quietly. “You encouraged her.”

She shook her head, tears welling, words jammed up in her throat. He was right. She could have stopped her mom. All she would have had to do was ask her to stay home.

“I left school so that I could help her,” Blake said miserably when she didn’t answer him.

“How are you going tohelpMom sitting in front of a screen?”

What was this strange, yet somehow familiar, place? She turned her attention toward her father now. “Andyou.”

Rage came up hot and wild, fueled by worry for Adele. “Why are you here? Where have you been? How could you do this to us and then just turn up? Who evenare you?”

Her father bowed his head again, put his hands to his chest in prayer hands.

“I have screwed up big-time, Violet,” he said, his voice a rasp. “Made too many mistakes to count. But I’m here now, to help you guys and your mom, to make amends. To answer for the things I’ve done—to you and to the law.”

She barely recognized him: gone was all his light and energy. He was a faded, broken version of himself. She thought of something she’d overheard Agent Coben say.Life on the run is no life.

“What does that mean?”

Her father drew and released a breath, held her gaze. “It means when I discovered that your mom had left to go to Falcão Island, I knew I had to come home and be here for you guys. I didn’t just ruin my life, I ruined yours and your mom’s. That’s why she’s in this mess. It’s not your fault or Blake’s. It’s mine. I did this, and I’m here to face that.”

She couldn’t stand to look at him, in her chest that terrible tangle of anger and love. She wanted to break things.

Instead, Violet moved in to look at each screen. And Blake filled her in on everything that had happened—from the missing CFO to the men on ATVs returning; from the storm and Malinka’s last, desperate broadcast to Angeline’s apparent abduction. The feeling of anguished helplessness was almost too much. They couldn’t climb through the screen to bring their mother home.

“So what do we do?” she asked. That was her mom’s thing.When the going got tough, what specific action could you take to make things better? “Can we…call the island police?”

“I did that,” said Blake. “I used the translate app. And they said all the roads to Enchantments are swamped. There’s no way to get them now. They were warned to leave, and they all chose to stay. Including Mom. So there’s nothing they can do now.”

“What about those men, those soldiers on the site?” asked Violet. “Can’t they help?”

“I asked that, too,” said Blake. “They have nothing to do with island law enforcement. They’re a private security team.”

“Owned by who?” asked Violet.

Blake just shrugged. Then his lower lip quivered, and his eyes filled. “I don’t know. You’re right, this was my idea. If anything happens to her—”

“It’s not your fault, son,” said Miller. “You’re all in the place you’re in because of me.”

“Well, that’s the truth,” spat Violet. She flung her arm wide. “What isthisplace? How did you get in touch with Blake?”

Her dad moved closer, like he might try to embrace her, and Violet reeled away from him. “Don’t touch me.”

“We’ve been talking onRed World,” said Blake, voice soft, crying in earnest now.

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