Page 110 of The Lair

“It still feels like a lie,” I argue.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t…” I wet my lips. “I didn’t tell anyone that Smith wasn’t my real name. I never told anyone who my family was. I came up with a fake backstory because telling the truth wasn’t an option. And my name… I didn’t change it because I wanted to. I changed it along with my looks because I didn’t feel safe anymore.”

“Because of your family?”

Their threats are still fresh on my mind. I can only imagine what they’ll say, what they’ll do when they see this, but no part of me feels regretful right now. Whatever the consequences, I’m ready to face them. I’ll pay any price if it means I’ll finally be free from their shackles—and my own.

My voice is louder, surer. “Yes.”

George says nothing for a moment, only looks at me with those intense eyes I swear can see right through me. It’s so clear now, the industry shark lying beneath the surface.

“Where have you been, Allison?”

“I left Los Angeles when I was nineteen and moved to Texas. I spent a year there.” I remember my time with Jada’s sister fondly, but looking back, my soul splits in half just thinking how scared and lost I was. “I wanted to see new places and keep finding myself, so I moved away again. I spent nearly a year in Nashville until someone recognized me.”

“You’d dyed your hair by that point, yes?”

I nod. “I’d cut it short, too, brushing my shoulders. A little shorter than it looks right now. I’d always had long hair, so I thought I looked very different.”

“But you didn’t if someone recognized you,” he points out.

“I mean… I flew under the radar for almost two years before someone recognized me. It was bound to happen.”

“You say it like it’s an obvious thing that you weren’t particularly worried about because it was expected. Yet you moved away when someone recognized you. Why?”

“I was in survival mode,” I confess out loud for the first time. “I was lost, didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to be left alone, and moving felt like my only choice to achieve that.”

“I’m assuming you had to pay for rent and groceries, which means you had to get a job. Where did you work?”

“I mostly worked at restaurants and bars,” I tell him, feeling the nerves leaving my body with each second. Would therapy feel like this too? “As a receptionist at a tattoo parlor, at a bookshop—whatever I could find.”

“Those jobs require dealing with customers, though. If your goal was to hide to avoid being recognized, it feels contradictory.”

“I graduated high school, but I never went to college,” I explain. “I have some accounting certificates, but they weren’t enough to get me the sort of job I would’ve liked. I had to take risks to keep a roof over my head.”

“Mm,” he muses before adjusting his position so his legs aren’t crossed anymore. “Were you surprised someone recognized you?”

I frown. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Some may say it’s a little… dramatic to change your name and appearance and escape Los Angeles like that. Your parents are well-known, but they aren’t Hollywood A-listers.”

I realize what he’s doing right away. Last night, I saw several comments on forums saying how I’d been too dramatic in my change of identity. That nobody would recognize a social media figure in person, let alone their children all grown up. That I should get over myself.

“My face was on the news for a very long time because of my kidnapping. People knew who I was,” I tell George, something uncomfortable rolling in my stomach at the memory of Claudia and that warehouse. “And after it happened, the media still talked about me, and my parents kept posting pictures of my face until I turned nineteen and left. Maybe those people aren’t entirely wrong in calling me dramatic. Maybe it is unlikely to be recognized many years later—although itdidhappen—but I was paranoid. I wasn’t seeing things clearly and acted on impulse.”

“I certainly understand.” George nods. “So, Nashville, where youdidget recognized. Where did you go after that?”

“I moved to a small town in North Carolina. With fewer people, I figured there was a lower risk of getting recognized. I stuck to small towns from then on.”

“You stayed there for a year too? That seems to be the pattern so far.”

“I wanted to move as far from California as possible.” My fingers aren’t shaking anymore, but the sweat on my hands remains. “Maine is the farthest state from California. That was always meant to be my final destination, but I wanted to live in other places first. To experience life independently, I guess. To gain self-confidence. I road-tripped my way to Maine over the span of five years, living in different states for about a year each.”

“Did you move around so much because, deep down, you didn’t feel safe anywhere?”

Dart, meet the bullseye.

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