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Ryan looks around. Everyone else is glowing. From the adrenaline of floating in the sky, from the Tuscan sun. He doesn’t want to bring the mood down further.
“I’ll tell you. But later, okay?”
She holds his gaze. “Yeah, sure, of course.”
What will he tell her? That he saw an imaginary monster from his past he isn’t even sure exists? That he’s not who he pretends to be? That he’s lied to them all?
After the champagne, the group thanks the crew—even the asshole captain of the balloon—and two vans shuttle them back to the launch site. Once there, they file into their own van. The bus no one can drive except Ryan.
He plops down in the driver’s seat, notices that someone has tucked something under the windshield wiper.
His chest tightens at the sight of it: another note.
He reaches out the window and clasps the envelope. Making sure no one is watching he tears it open. In the same handwriting as before it says:
Do I have your attention now? Tomorrow, 10 a.m. at the Palazzo.
12
LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
Poppy is startled by a hard knock on her office’s open door. She examines the young Black woman standing in the entryway. She’s pretty, animated.
“You’re Poppy McGee?”
“Yeah.”
“I could’ve called, but I was here for something else, and wanted to see what a ‘Poppy McGee’ looks like.”
The woman’s quirky, but she’s charming and can get away with it.
“I hope you’re not disappointed,” Poppy says.
The woman’s eyes are alight. “Not at all. I’m Chantelle Luna. I work in the lab at KBI.”
Poppy examines her. She has an infectious smile. A dimple punctuating her cheek. “What can I do for you?”
“Margaret told me you’re our contact for the Alison Lane case.”
Poppy nods. “You’ve identified the guys in the car?”
“Not yet. There’s a DNA test backlog. But we found something we thought you’d want to know about right away.”
Poppy feels a flutter of excitement.
“You know Alison Lane’s handbag was in the car?” Chantelle asks.
Poppy nods. The Cold Case Company reported this in one of the videos.
“So it was waterlogged, as you’d expect. But Alison Lane had a makeup bag and it had a tight seal and kept pretty dry even after all this time.”
“You found something?” Poppy asks, trying to contain the eagerness in her voice.
Chantelle swipes at her phone, then displays a photo. It’s of an envelope. On the outside it says: “If something happens to me.”
A spurt of adrenaline shoots through Poppy. “Alison had this inside her purse?”
Chantelle nods enthusiastically.