The Scammer(83)

He hesitates. “That . . . I didn’t do that.”

“I could’ve died. They cut my hair!”

“That wasn’t a call I made. I swear to you.” He frowns at the floor. “Anger always results in sloppiness.”

I take a quick glance at the computer on my desk, the screen black. “Did you mean what you said . . . about my writing?”

He brightens. “Yes. Yes, absolutely.”

Even as I sit here hating him with every fiber of my being, I ache to have this one morsel to be true.

“I need my credit cards. I need to buy a new wardrobe. They tore everything I had to shreds.”

He waves me off. “You don’t need those material things. You’ll start fresh, new.”

“I want to start new now. Can we go?” I ask, trying to persuade him out the door.

He smooths a hand down the back of my neck. “Love, you must practice patience. We just need to tie up a few things here. Then we’ll go. Just you and me.”

He doesn’t sound like himself. His head is up in the clouds. Like . . . he’s really in love.

“Um. Okay. Where will we go?”

He pulls me tighter against him. “To Virginia, like I said. We’ll break ground on Emancipation. Become sovereign citizens.”

I pull back to look at him. “You’re . . . serious about that?”

His laugh is deep. “I’m serious about that like I’m serious about you. The land is in my name. Bought in cash.”

I feel rocked off my balance beam. Because it almost feels like he’s telling the truth. Maybe not everything out of his warped mind is a lie.

Just like Loren said.

Devonte loops an arm around my waist, pulling me tight against his hip.

“This has all been very difficult for you. I understand. It’s easier to be led in the wrong direction than the right one. The path to true enlightenment isn’t painless but worthwhile. You’ll see. You just give me what I need, I’ll give you what you need.”

He bends down, kissing my cheek just as the front door creaks open. Devonte turns with a glowing smile that quickly drops at the sight of three plainclothes police officers strolling into the room.

There’s no sense of urgency in the officers. He’s already been caught.

I pull the wire taped to my bra out of my shirt.

Devonte tracks the wires in disbelief. The officers are talking, searching his jacket, finding the credit cards that he took out in my name. The ones that came in the mail that he never opened. The ones I slipped into his jacket.

Neither of us are listening to the detectives. Too busy glaring each other down. But then, suddenly, he smiles. It’s not a sinister smile.

It’s a smile that says he’s won.





Thirty-Three




That was too easy.

I pick at my nails, the thought running through my head over and over again.

That was too easy.

It’s the prevailing feeling I have. His steps have been too calculated and meticulous. To trap him without breaking a sweat doesn’t seem plausible. More impossible. Nothing in life is that easy. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is; that’s my dad’s motto. Kevin hated the saying. I wonder if he was thinking it . . . in his final days.

That was too easy. What am I missing?

So caught up in my own pseudo-failure, I barely notice Nick ripping into the men facing me.

“How does a guy like that make bail and you LOSE him?” Nick snaps, standing behind me in a conference room at the police station.

“He has the means,” Mr. Richard says, the lawyer my parents hired.

Devonte wasn’t kidding when he said he had friends in high places and favors to cash in on. He was out on bail in less than twenty-four hours.

“And now he’s gone! Free to come and attack Jordyn!”

Gone seems like such a simple word. Gone implies he’s no longer around but Devonte feels omnipresent in every sense. I can still smell him, his scent baked into our clothes and all over our dorm rooms.

“Devonte’s last been seen jumping on a flight to California, probably trying to make a run for Mexico,” a detective explains. “He won’t be back here anytime soon, I’m afraid.”

The hope was that with him off campus, the fire that is his growing cult would simmer and die. The university is already trying to come up with excuses to avoid any pending lawsuits.

That was too easy.

But I keep thinking about that smile on his face. What does he know that I don’t?

A chill rips through me.

“What if he comes looking for me?” I ask to no one in particular.

Nick sits beside me, holding my hand under the table, a thumb tracing over my knuckles.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” he whispers softly.

“We have an all-points bulletin and a car set outside the dorm,” the detective says. “The school has replaced the entire security team. Cameras are up to date. Jordyn, you’re safe.”

Nick’s frat brothers used their connections with dorm security and found out one of the guards had edited footage out a week before Thanksgiving. In the missing clip is Kammy walking out of the dorm, her wig back on, nervously checking around her. Two minutes later, Devonte emerges, seemingly following her. There’s no footage of Kammy returning. Just Devonte. He’s now a prime suspect.