Gray Cap’s used to being a lone wolf.
They’re dangerous, lone wolves. They’ll chew off a whole leg to get free of a trap. I see that in Gray Cap, that Don’t give a fuck, I’ll do whatever it takes kind of gleam that’s never good unless applied to a do-or-die situation. Except in this case, it’s his doing and me and my friends dying, so we’re fucked unless the seeds I planted blossom into sharp thorns disguised as tempting flowers. You pluck one, the thorn stabs you right through. He drags the table blocking the door away while still holding on to me. But he doesn’t open the door. He turns back to me instead.
“No more helping,” he orders. “And maybe I won’t shoot you.”
“Fine.”
And then it happens. He looks me up and down, really taking me in. I don’t blink or falter even though my skin’s crawling and my heart clamors run like a bell. I just let him do it before he asks the question that tells me the seeds I’ve planted have taken root.
“Did you really do what they say you did?”
I wait a beat. A breath. You need to pick your moment. My smile, when it comes, is slow. Sweet at first, and then on the edge of creepy, because it sharpens into something that shouldn’t belong on such a pretty girl’s face. He’s transfixed, and his fingers tighten on my arm involuntarily. A few more seconds and he’ll have goose bumps prickling across his skin.
I am that good. Or maybe I’m that dangerous.
“No,” I say. “I did more.”
— 24 —
The Myth vs. the Girl
This is what the regular world knows about Ashley Keane: She’s a phantom. A blacked-out name on a lot of FBI files and a few legal briefs. She’s a question mark that never got answered during the trials. Was there a daughter? Was she just a rumor? Another of my mother’s lies? Did Ashley really exist? Did she do what they say she did?
There are websites dedicated to the mystery. Sightings. Discussions. Sketches of what she might have looked like then, who she might have aged into. So many theories, none of them even close to right.
My mother kept her mouth shut about me, the deal that Lee had made with the FBI cut us free and stealthy in all ways, and Raymond?
Raymond didn’t want the FBI to know what I’d done. He didn’t want anyone looking for me unless they were looking for me for him. Because Raymond had a new mission in his new life behind bars: Get free so he could find me and kill me.
This is what the criminal world knows about Ashley Keane: She’s a snitch. A pretty little piece of jailbait turned deadly. A femme fatale, blond and sparkling and pink-lipped, who gutted Raymond Keane’s operation with one beckon of her preteen finger. They sexualize her, all the men who talk and search for her. Otherwise, she scares them, because she did what they would never have the nerve to do.
Ashley Keane has a price on her head—and dear old stepdad will pay practically anything for that head. I’m not even sure he cares if it’s attached to my body at this point. I know he’d prefer it, but so far—and for a lot longer than Raymond imagined—I’ve eluded the men who search for Ashley. So I’ve become an obsession: Raymond Keane needs to get the better of the girl who got the better of him.
This is what I know about Ashley Keane: She was twelve. She was scared. She was backed into a corner. And she did whatever it took to survive.
But there were consequences. And they might just kill me yet.
— 25 —
10:58 a.m. （106 minutes captive）
1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys
Plan #1: Scrapped
Plan #2: In progress
“What did he do to you?” Iris asks when I step back inside the office and the door swings shut. I hold out my hand and we wait a moment, the scrape of the table starting and then stopping as we’re blocked in again.
“Are you okay?” Iris asks, and at the same time, Wes says, “What did you do?”
Two very different questions, from two very different people, directed at two very different girls. Wes knows the real one. Iris is about to.
My heart rattles in my rib cage at the thought. At the memory of how Wes reacted when he found out.
“You okay, Casey?” I ask, partly to distract myself from the inevitable.
She’s sitting in the corner, her knees drawn up. She nods.
“Just hang tight. It’s almost over.”
Wes sucks in a breath. “What did you do?” he asks again, all intense and frowny. He is going to hate this, but I couldn’t think of any other way.