“You were together,” I fill in when it’s clear she won’t. I understand why she can’t. She broke the number one rule.
She fell for the mark. I want to reach out and stroke her arm, but I’m afraid that it’ll be clumsy. That it might be unwelcome.
“I couldn’t find you after you and Abby left Washington. When you finally popped up, I was just going to go to Florida and take you. Fuck the plan; I’d worry about her chasing us later. But then I saw the marriage license.”
“Agent North couldn’t ignore you if you gave her Raymond Keane,” I say, understanding now.
“So the plan was back on. And now we’re here.”
“I fucked it up.”
“You managed,” she says. “That’s what matters. And in a few hours, we’ll be gone.”
“He’ll look for me.”
“We have a head start. He has to be on good behavior through the trial. Once he’s put away, it’ll take him a while to gather power. They’ll assume you’re in witness protection. Whoever he hires to come after you will focus on that angle first. We have time.”
“To do what? Hide better?”
“To make backup plans. To prepare. And to live. That’s what this is all about.”
“You want me to live like a normal person.” I shake my head. “Agent North is right. I’m not normal.”
“There is no normal,” Amelia says. “There’s just a bunch of people pretending there is. There’s just different levels of pain. Different stages of safe. The biggest con of all is that there’s a normal. What I want for you is happiness and safety. That’s what I want for myself, too.”
“Were you happy with Agent North?”
When she doesn’t answer, I press further.
“Did you love her?”
Still no answer.
“Because she was kind of mean,” I add.
“What I did to her was more than mean,” Amelia says.
“So you did love her.” I pause. “Do love her?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, all the answer I need. I really am just a tidal wave, destroying everything in my wake.
“I’m sorry.”
She reaches out again to squeeze my hand. This is something she does, I realize. Touch people genuinely. Can I tell her that I’m not used to it? That it makes me jump inside my skin almost as much as it comforts me?
“Everything that I’ve done is worth it to have you here safe with me,” she says. “And now you get to have a brand-new life.”
“Where?”
“California,” she says. “Way up north.” She squeezes my hand again. “It’s a little town called Clear Creek.”
“And you?” I ask. She looks quizzically at me. “What are you called?”
It’s like the air sharpens around us, and her entire body tenses and then releases just as quickly. An ingrained response that we both have. Amelia was her touchstone, the real girl no one but the Deveraux women know. She conned Mom into thinking she was still Amelia, but she’s become someone else, truly and fully.
I know my sister, but I don’t. Now I get to meet the real her.
“Lee,” she says. “Lee Ann O’Malley.”
Lee. Short. Matter-of-fact. It suits her.
I want to be brave when I ask the next thing, but I’m not. I’m right back in front of that mirror, Mom’s hands braiding my long hair as I repeat a name dutifully after her . . . and my voice shakes.
“And what am I called?”
“That’s up to you,” Lee says, and choosing like that is as unfathomable as safe and help and home. “What do you want your name to be?”
“I get to choose?”
Her thumb settles on the pulse point of my wrist. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
“You get to choose.”
— 43 —
11:57 a.m. （165 minutes captive）
1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys
Plan #1: Scrapped
Plan #2: On hold
Plan #3: Stab
Plan #4: Get gun. Get free. Get Iris and Wes. Get out.
Duane slumps to the side, his hold on the pistol slackening, and I move. I don’t talk myself out of it or hesitate, because who knows if he’ll jerk himself conscious any second.
It’s awkward with my bound hands, but I manage to pick the gun up, though I can’t shoot it or hold it properly.
I set it down on the desk, turning back to him. His breathing is shallow. The blood loss got to him, maybe, but if he just passed out from the pain, he might come to fast. But I need my hands free.