Page 79 of Girl, Sought

‘Go. Be safe.’

And Luca was gone, back from whence he came.

Now it was just her and Vanessa, all she could do was wait.

CHAPTER FORTY

Branches whipped at Lawrence's face like clawed fingers as he crashed through the underbrush, lungs burning, legs churning through knee-deep drifts of moldering leaves. Brambles snagged at his clothes, thorns found skin and drew blood that mixed with the rain and the sweat and the impotentfurycoursing through his veins.

It wasn't supposed to go like this. It was supposed to beperfect.

He'd had it all planned out down to the last detail. The way he'd sneak through the woods, creep up while she sat preening over that stupid God damn egg that he’d convinced Mrs. Whitaker was the real deal. The feel of the garrote wire biting into his palms as he looped it around her scrawny neck. The animal terror in her eyes as she realized her number was finally up, the last charge on a Platinum card life spent chasing other people's meaningless shit.

It was going to behismasterpiece.Hisgreat work. The culmination of every sick, sorry thing he'd ever done in service to this twisted obsession that had eaten him up and shat him out, like a walking corpse stitched together from other people's broken lives.

It had all gone to hell when that bitch cop – or whatever she was – started yelling. Lawrence had to abandon ship that very second; grab his briefcase and then scurry into the woods like a coward.

Just like he'd run from everything in his miserable life that ever mattered. His father's fists, his mother's vodka-pickled rages. The sneers and jeers of every other person who'd ever looked down their noses at dipshit Larry Winters, that nobody piece of trailer trash who thought he could rise above his raising on a tide of other men's treasures.

Lawrence stumbled, nearly faceplanted into a tangle of dead branches. He caught himself at the last second, wrenched his body back upright through sheer force of will. His head was spinning, stomach churning. The cocktail of adrenaline and rage curdling in his guts like week-old milk. His briefcase – the fancy leather one he'd bought specially for client meetings – snagged on every damn bush he passed. Inside, his tools clinked together like wind chimes.

He needed to get out of these woods. Needed to find his car, put some distance between himself and the scene of his greatest triumph-turned-mistake. He forced himself to slow down and breathe.

Think,dipshit.Think.Where had he parked? How far had he hiked through these godforsaken trees to reach Vanessa's glass castle?

He'd left it on some maintenance track about half a mile in. Smart money said park deep enough that no one would spot it from the road. Real smart. Now he couldn't find the damn thing in this maze of dead trees.

The rain was coming down harder now. It plastered his hair to his skull, ran into his eyes and blurred the world to a smear of dead gray and brown. He shook his head like a dog, trying to clear his vision. He squinted into the gloom and looked for landmarks. For the break in the treeline that would mean civilization, safety, escape.

Then – there. A flash of blue through the trees. His Toyota Camry, carefully chosen for its utterly forgettable presence. Just another middle-class professional's ride.

Relief hit him and left him dizzy. He crashed through the last few yards of underbrush, fumbled for his keys with numb fingers and hit unlocked the door. He collapsed into the driver’s seat and threw down his briefcase beside him.

Now what? Now where? Too many questions, but the one that hit him hardest was:

Was Vanessa Blackburn dead?

The wire had a bit deep. He'd felt cartilage crunch under his hands, but he hadn't stayed to confirm the kill. Hadn't been able to take his trophy either. All that planning, all that careful preparation, and now he had nothing to show for it except mud on his shoes and a failure that would haunt him forever.

If Vanessa was dead, hemightbe okay. Dead people didn’t talk.

But if she was alive, then that was a different story.

Had she recognized him? He’d been careful not to talk, not to say a word, but what if she recognized something else? His natural scent? His outline? What if the bitch was just smart enough to realize that Larry Winters was the only person in the CVG’s orbit that had access to all of her client information – security codes included.

No. Don't think about that. Focus on getting clear. One foot in front of the other. Just like dad taught him during those endless hiking trips that always ended in bruises and tears. Keep moving. Don't look back. The past can't catch you if you run fast enough.

Where now? Home wasn't safe - that would be the first place they'd look if Vanessa survived to name him. A hotel maybe? No, too many cameras these days. Security systems hungry for faces to feed to facial recognition databases.

His office was compromised, too. No friends to speak of - he'd never been good at maintaining those superficial connections that normal people seemed to navigate so easily.

The work. The files.

Oh shit.

His office computer still held records of every collector he'd researched. Email trails, browser histories, notes on their schedules and security systems. He'd been too careful to keep anything explicitly incriminating, but a good forensics team would find his digital fingerprints all over the victims.

He needed to survive long enough to get to that computer. Needed to wipe it clean before the cops came sniffing around. But they'd be watching any location that he had links to; the Curated Value Group's offices, his apartment, every company he’d contracted for, his own office.

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