ELLIE CAME AWAKE to her phone ringing. The room was dark except for the alarm clock, with its bright green numbers. Four forty-six a.m.
Where was she? Right, the hotel room. Max was sleeping beside her.
Sebastian was calling her. She scooped up the phone and hurried off to the bathroom.
“I need you to come to the house,” Sebastian said as she eased the door shut.
“Of course.” Ellie heard the tightness in his voice. “Is everything okay?”
“There’s been a development, and I need your help.”
“Paul?”
“Just get to the house,” Sebastian said, and hung up.
She’d had a good amount of alcohol last night and had less than six hours of sleep, but she didn’t feel hungover or the slightest bit tired. Another benefit, she figured, of Pandora.
As she showered, she kept thinking about the photo of her twin brother. Ron Wolff had circulated it around Las Vegas and found nothing, but that didn’t mean he would stop digging. The man was a seasoned investigator, and he had all sorts of resources at his disposal—and computer experts. Who knew what they could turn up in some database?
Maybe Ron found something, she thought. Maybe that’s why Sebastian summoned me to his house, to confront me about it.
And then there was Roland Bauer. His entire operation was now riding on an undercover agent who had deliberately withheld information—had lied, essentially. He had the full power of the Federal Bureau of Investigation behind him. Sebastian’s people might not be able to turn anything up, but the FBI would, and then she’d have to come clean about everything. She’d have to admit she had lied about who she was when she applied to the LAPD. That in and of itself was a crime. After this operation was signed, sealed, and delivered and went to trial, Sebastian, who could easily afford to buy his own “dream team” of litigators and legal experts, would find out she had lied to the LAPD, and a judge could summarily dismiss the entire case against him.
Maybe not, she thought, shutting off the water. Before hiring her for this operation, the FBI had conducted an extensive background check on her and hadn’t found out a single thing about her brother, the aliases she’d used over the years—anything. It stood to reason that Sebastian’s people wouldn’t find out anything, either.
Still, Sebastian had the picture. Roland did, too.
I’m getting ahead of myself. She needed to focus on what was in front of her, and that was Sebastian. He would confront her at some point—she was sure of it—and she needed to have a story ready.
Ellie had thought long and hard about it last night while waiting for sleep. She thought about it again as she dressed and when she kissed Max goodbye, the way a good girlfriend did—passionate and excited, hungry for their next moment together.
When Ellie turned onto Sebastian’s street, the first thing she noticed was the home’s front window. It was a spiderweb of cracks; you couldn’t miss it.
To the untrained eye it would look like some asshole neighborhood kid had thrown a small rock at the window, but not hard enough to break through the glass. Get a little closer, though, and you could see the bullet hole frozen in the bulletproof glass.
She parked in the driveway and went into the backyard. Through the sliding glass door, she saw Sebastian sitting alone at the kitchen table. His hands were wrapped around a coffee mug, and he stared down at it blankly, looking haggard. Distraught. His dress shirt was wrinkled, like he had slept in it.
He looked up when she opened the door. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin underneath them bruised.
“Help yourself to some coffee,” Sebastian said. His voice was dry. Hoarse. He cleared his throat. “I think there are muffins over there from yesterday, some croissants.”
Ellie surveyed the surrounding rooms. Empty and quiet.
“Where is everyone?” Ellie asked.
“Tracking down an email from Paul.”
Maybe they were. Or maybe Sebastian wanted her alone so he could torture her for information on the photo.
Or just kill me. “He responsible for the window?”
“Him or Guidry.”
“Guidry?”
“Paul’s friend from the military,” he said. “The sniper.”
“The day I went with Anton to Fresno, Paul said he had a sniper keeping an eye on us. Lucky for you, your windows are made of bulletproof glass. I take it you didn’t catch either Paul or this Guidry guy last night.”
Sebastian shook his head as he sucked in air, color flaring in his cheeks.
Ellie pulled out the chair beside him. “What’s Guidry look like? You have a picture?”
Sebastian reached into his pocket, came back with a folded piece of paper, handed it to her.
It was a picture of J.C. sitting in front of a Christmas tree. The same picture she had tacked on the wall of her home and then carried in her shoe, taking it out at times when she knew she was alone, the picture always righting her when she felt nervous or scared or doubted herself.
Ellie smiled warmly and sighed—a happy sigh, as though she’d just opened a wonderful, thoughtful gift.
“I thought I’d never see this again.”
“Who’s the kid?” Sebastian’s tone was casual, but his eyes were cold, and he was very still, the way a dog was as it decided whether or not to attack.
“This,” Ellie said, “is my brother. My twin brother, actually.”
“You always carry a picture of him inside your shoe?”
Ellie shrugged. “Depends.”
“Depends? On what?”
“On what I’m wearing that day. That day I was wearing a dress, no pockets, so I had to improvise.”
“Why not your purse?”
“Because someone might get nosy and decide to take a look in my purse, find this, and start asking all sorts of questions that are none of their business.” Ellie’s tone was firm but not combative. She wanted to come across as confident and calm, not angry. People caught in a lie lashed out in anger. People who had nothing to hide met questions head-on, didn’t act or speak defensively.
Ellie placed the picture on the table. She turned slightly in her chair so she could face him, her arms open as she said, “Cat’s out of the bag, so please, ask away.”
“First time I’m hearing you have a brother.”
“Had,” Ellie said.
“What happened?”
“He was a carrier, I’m told, and he was abducted shortly after I was born.” Telling part of the truth, she’d reasoned, could sometimes be the best kind of lie.
Sebastian’s gaze narrowed in thought; then his eyes widened, and his features smoothed out.
“Never knew him—never knew about him, either, until my mother was dying,” Ellie said. “She was prepared to take that secret to her grave—would have, too, if I hadn’t stumbled across this picture while gathering some stuff from her safe. Even then, she wouldn’t tell me much.”
“What’s his name?”
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t know your own brother’s name?”
“Maybe I’m not being clear. Sorry—late night. Thank you for that, by the way. The dinner, and the hotel.”
Sebastian said nothing, didn’t nod or look like he’d heard her. Ellie felt and looked relaxed as she blended fact with fiction. It’s not a lie if you one hundred percent believe it, Roland had told her.
“So,” she said. “My mother. She refused to tell me my brother’s name—his real name—saying no good would come of it. That’s when I found out that my name wasn’t my real name.”
“What is it? Your real name.”
“That’s the thing. I have no idea. Seems my mother changed it not once but several times, in order to protect me—to protect us. We moved around a lot before settling in Las Vegas. As for my brother, she never reported his abduction to the police. Why? you ask. I asked her the same question. She told me it was because the people who took my brother were cops. There were four of them, she said, and they came into the house and went at her pretty bad. My mother was a fighter. Anyway, they thought she was dead. She heard two of them talking, and she told me she recognized their voices—local cops who were heavily involved in the neighborhood. That’s why she didn’t report it, why we packed up the next day and moved.”
“So that’s what this is all about, why you’re so driven.” Sebastian said it more to himself than to her, Ellie thought. “You became a stickman so you could find your brother.”
Ellie nodded. “I carry that picture—it’s like he’s a part of me—with me while I’m out looking for him.”
“But why come to LA?”
Ellie had anticipated the question. “Because this is where he was taken.”
“Where, specifically?”
“I don’t know. My hope is that you’ll help me.”
“Now I know why you were so anxious to save my life.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “I don’t have him, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t. But since you brought it up—”
“I know all of my carriers,” Sebastian said. “Every single one.”
“You’ve been doing this a long time. How can you possibly know all the carriers on your blood farms?”
“I don’t like that term. It implies that I treat my carriers as livestock, which I don’t. You’d be surprised by how well they’re treated.”
“I’d like to see how you do things.”
“Help me find Paul, and you’re more than welcome to see for yourself.”
“Thank you. Although, I should say, I don’t think it’s you who has him. The two cops I told you about, the ones my mother heard talking? She told me they were both Armenians.”
“If your brother was taken by the Armenians,” Sebastian said, “then I’m sorry to say he’s as good as dead.”
The sinking despair Ellie felt in the pit of her stomach was genuine. She allowed it to reach her face. “But I’m sure you have . . . dealings with them. Connections.”
“If the Armenians knew who I was, they’d take me out of the picture.”
“And take over your business.”
Sebastian nodded.
“But if he wasn’t taken by the Armenians?” Ellie asked. “I’m sure you know other people in the blood world—local people.”
“You said twin. Are you a carrier?”
“I am,” Ellie lied. “That’s the second reason why I got into the business. So I could work my way up, get to a position where I could afford to live somewhere safe, protect myself. Know the players, know the landscape, stay a step ahead of it, so I would never be a victim again.”
Sebastian was looking at her in an entirely different way, like he had discovered something in her that he admired but that made him wary. Guarded.
Ellie didn’t speak. Sebastian didn’t, either, just stared at her, thinking. The hum of the refrigerator filled the silence.
“While we’re on the subject,” Ellie said, “I should tell you I have no intention of becoming a part of your blood farm or stable or whatever it is you choose to call it. I will take any and every measure to prevent that from happening.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I hope not. Because if that’s your intention, we should part ways now.”
Sebastian rubbed his bottom lip, thinking.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know about me?” Ellie asked.
She waited, relaxed, hands folded on her lap.
“I need you to reach out to someone this morning,” Sebastian said. “Her name is Candice Jackson. She’s slightly older than you—mid-thirties—and worked as a contracts lawyer for some prominent firm downtown. She had a short-term romantic relationship with Paul.”
“When was this?”
“Sometime last year. I don’t know the particulars—don’t know anything, quite frankly. What I need you to do is talk to her, find out if she knows anything about where Paul might be. Or Bradley Guidry.”
Sebastian handed her a photo of a twenty-something guy wearing a bathing suit and smiling at the camera. He had a blond crew cut and a tan, and while he was nowhere near as tall or as muscular as Paul, the guy had almost no body fat and looked, to use one of Cody’s terms, “absolutely shredded.”
“How does Paul know him?” Ellie asked.
“They worked together overseas. Contract work. Military. They were both Marines.”
Ellie leaned back in her chair and studied him.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
“I know about you and Ava Lewis,” Ellie said. “I looked you up online. She was mentioned in the article about your sentencing years ago.”
Sebastian said nothing.
“And I know about what happened to her daughter, Grace,” Ellie said. “Paul has her, doesn’t he?”
“He does. Which is why I need you to make contact with Candice Jackson.”
Sebastian, Ellie felt, was grasping at straws. After all these months of being hunted, Paul still kept eluding him. “Why did it end? Their relationship.”
“It’s my understanding that something happened between them—something, I’m told, that scared her. She came back to LA last night, after a long time away.”
“Have your people spoken to her about Paul?”
“No. No one has. But I’m willing to bet she’ll talk to you.”
“Because I’m a woman.”
Sebastian nodded. “You’re going to approach her under the guise that you were, until recently, romantically involved with Paul—in a serious relationship, possibly talking about marriage. You’re reaching out to her because Paul has disappeared and won’t return your phone calls or texts, and you’re heartbroken.”
“And when Jackson asks how I got her name?”
“You’ll tell her Paul had talked about her—you and Paul had discussed past relationships—and you wanted to reach out to her because you’re desperate, wanting to know where he went, why he left you high and dry.”
“I’ll tell her I’m seeing a therapist—a female therapist. That she recommended I reach out to her to seek closure. I need to move on but can’t, not until I find and confront Paul.”
Sebastian pursed his lips, nodded. “I like that,” he said. “I’ll give you her home address. She’s there right now.”
So Sebastian had people watching her. Ellie said, “You don’t expect me to just show up on her doorstep unannounced, do you?”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you to take your time—follow her for a bit, see what you can find out about her, approach her when the time feels right. But these aren’t normal circumstances, for reasons you now know. Why are you shaking your head?”
“She’s never met me. Showing up unannounced and asking questions—that’s too aggressive. And frightening, especially if she’s been the victim of domestic abuse.” That sounded too much like cop-speak. Ellie said, “Did he kick the shit out of her?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past Paul.”
“If he abused her or threatened her, if she was previously abused by another boyfriend or a family member, then her house is most likely the only place where she feels safe. If I go there and start asking questions, she’ll shut down. But if I talk to her first, establish a rapport with her and draw her out, suggest we meet for, say, lunch somewhere close to her, I think she’ll be more likely to open up and talk.”
“Tell me what you’ll say.”
She winged it, going with her gut. Sebastian discussed the flaws in her approach, and then they ran through all the possible conversations, Sebastian taking on the role of Candice Jackson and throwing up roadblocks. Half an hour later, they felt they had the conversation locked down. Sebastian gave her Candice Jackson’s number.
Ellie dialed it and then listened as the phone on the other end of the line rang and rang; she thought the call would go to voicemail.
“Hello?” The woman’s voice sounded groggy.
“Hi, Candice?”
“Who’s this?”
“My name is Faye Simpson. You don’t know me, but I’m really hoping we could talk about my fiancé. Well, the man I thought was going to be my fiancé. You know him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Paul,” Ellie said. “Paul Young.”