I ran my hand rapturously over the console. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Langer opened the passenger side door. “Bullshit. At least give me alittlecredit.”
Actually, I had done so much poking around I wasn’t exactly sure which particular poking around he was referring to, but I decided not to ask for clarification. “Is that an order?”
“No, it’s not an order. I can’torderyou to do anything. I’m not your master. But I will say that if you think Resi has aproblem with you now, you don’t want to see her when you’ve really pissed her off. And now that I’ve told you what White Cedar is—what we’re working on—I trust that you can appreciate the gravity of what we’re doing here.Everythingis wrapped up in it. I’ve put my shares in Orbital Dynamics—and my other companies—up as collateral on that lab.”
I swallowed.
“And if something fucks this up—ifyoufuck it up—all of this”—he gestured to the sprawling mansion, the grounds, and the folly in the mountains beyond—“goes with it. Including you. Back to Keith. And wherever he sends you, you know it won’t be back to Curly Sue’s chemistry homework.”
I bent my head and closed my eyes against the thought. “You’re threatening me.”
“No. I’m not threatening you any more than I’m threatening myself, although unlike me, you have more to lose than money. And let me be clear: I’ll help you find your sister. And I’ll figure out what the deal is with Lemaya, too. Maybe Resi sent her to a meditation retreat for a week. I don’t fucking know. Either way, just let me handle it, okay?”
“I’m not promising anything,” I said, breathlessly opening the driver’s side door and sliding into the buttery-smooth leather seat with its intoxicating smell, knowing that I was being shamelessly bribed. But couldn’t I have a minute—okay, a few minutes—in which I didn’t have to care? I looked up into the icy blue eyes staring down at me. “You’ll get a chance. And my personal guarantee that if you’re still up to something, Iwillfind out.”
“God, you’re fucking impossible.”
“Hey,youwanted me. Remember, I’m just a poor, innocent, oppressed slave, dragged here against my will. Keys.” I beckoned for them with exaggerated boredom.
“Ever driven a manual?” Langer asked, raising an eyebrow.
“All the time.” Well, twice. Four years ago. For ten minutes. Illicitly. But hell, I would have lied and said I knew how to fly a helicopter if I’d been offered the chance to fly one likethis.
“I’m buying it for you, you know. I mean, if you like it.”
“Yeah. I figured that out.” Only about three seconds ago, but still.
Langer shook his head and tossed the keys into my waiting hand. “You know, in another life, you would have made a damn good rich kid.”
I laughed as I started the engine.
“Happy early birthday. It’s next week, right?”
Startled, I asked, “How did you—never mind.” I’d forgotten about it myself, as I did most years. I slammed the clutch to the floor and shifted into first gear with every scrap of muscle memory I could conjure up. I tore out of the driveway, guiding the convertible along the dirt road, down the highway, into the twilight, and toward the lights of the city, awash in such adrenaline that I almost didn’t mind when Max gave me a few well-curated tips about when to release the clutch.
“By the way, if the girls can’t go out, why did Lemaya get to go shopping with me?” I shouted over the wind and engine noise.
“Because we’re pretty sure her owner’s dead,” Langer shouted back.
“How do you know?”
But I couldn’t hear the response.
That night, “the girls” came over to the penthouse again. Only in place of Lemaya, a willowy redhead calling herself Sloane was the one sitting out on the terrace, eating panko-crusted swordfish courtesy of Langer’s personal chef, guzzling champagne and raspberry liqueur, and climbing all over her “boss” in the hot tub as I stood on the other side, staring past the city lights at the distant mountains with a heating pad on myshoulder, sucking down bourbon like water and trying not to be sick.
And for once, Resi made no threats, no insults, no constant reminders of what I—and Langer—were trying to pretend I wasn’t. From the other side of the marble bar, glass in hand, she just smiled sweetly.
3
HIM
Ihad Lemaya’s number—or what she’d said was her number, anyway—programmed into my new phone, and I tried messaging her over the next few days, with no reply. Max informed me he’d seen her yesterday and that she said she wasn’t feeling well, which only partially reassured me. I tried my sister again, too—if she was away from Resi, maybe she’d have access to a phone again and would be able to respond to me over the same network. No luck there, either.
Langer gave me daily updates, having put out Maeve’s name and picture to his network of contacts in the high-level abolitionist community, of which he apparently had quite a few—even sending me screenshots of their baffled replies. For the first time, I had no reason to think Langer was lying. I still wasn’t sure it mattered, though.
Langer also had daily video calls with Wainwright-Phillips, calls that he even let me listen in on if I wanted. Normal-sounding calls that Wainwright-Phillips definitely wouldn’t be doing if his daughter were missing, hurt, or dead, and it was allI had for now, so much so that—as stupid and sad as it was—I imagined Louisa catching snatches of them from the hallway outside her father’s study, completely unaware of who else was on the other side.
