Page 104 of Dirty Grovel

“I… Uh, no.”

“Sydney.”

Her sob disarms me. “He just bruised my arm when he was dragging me to the car.”

“Why did he drag you to the car?”

“He wanted to bring me here.”

White-knuckling the seat, I do my best to keep my voice as calm and sensible as I can. Sydney is on the cusp of hysteria and if I can’t get through to her, she’ll spiral beyond.

“Where is ‘here’?”

“I-I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. And I missed all the exit signs. I was curled in a ball in the back seat of the car… thinking… thinking about those men… Their eyes were open, Sutton…”

Another loud sob turns the line hazy with static. “Sydney, honey, listen to me?—”

“I’ve never seen a dead body before, Sutton. They smell different… Did you know that?”

“Sydney, where is Paul now?”

“On the bed in the next room.”

“Passed out, you said?”

“He had a bunch of booze in the car. And he snorted a lot of cocaine, too. I’m scared, Sutton. I want to get out of here.”

Think, Sutton. Plan. Be the savior your sister needs you to be.

I drag in a deep breath to steal myself. Oksana is still occupied up ahead on the sidewalk.

But she’ll turn back soon.

“As soon as you get off the phone with me, I need you to send me your location. Then wipe your phone clean of the last few messages and delete this call from the log. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes.”

“Do it. Now. We don’t have time to waste.”

“W-what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to tell O?—”

“No!”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t tell Oleg, Sutton. You can’t tell anyone. He told me that if I breathed a word to anyone, he would kill me like he killed them.”

“But—”

“Come alone,” she begs. “Just you. He won’t be expecting that. He won’t get suspicious. But if he knows that Oleg is involved… He will kill me, Sutton. I know he will.”

“Sydney, I’ll need help?—”

“Please! I can’t risk it. If you love me at all, you’ll come alone like I’m asking you to.”

My palms are so sweaty that the phone is in danger of slipping right out of them. Oksana is hanging up and tucking her phone back in her purse.

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