For a split second, I imagined I saw something warm on his face, but a moment later it was shuttered behind his usual cold expression.
“Maybe you can use it to help us figure out what Lombardi and Mr. Suit are up to. The sooner we do that, the sooner you can leave.”
I was still processing the conversional whiplash when he stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him.
33
LILAH
I staredat the glow of the laptop screen in the dark, the words screaming from a two-month-old news headline: FORMER BLACKWELL RESIDENT TIED TO TRAFFICKING OPERATION.
It was all about that rich asshole Piers Cantwell and his son, who’d planned to traffic girls through the resort they’d been building on the other side of the mountain.
I’d seen it on the local news Vic sometimes turned on, volume muted, in the bar, but the truth was, I hadn’t paid much attention. It wasn’t that I hadn’t cared. I’d just been busy with my own survival, and the story of how the Cantwells had been working with some other guy named Arlo, who’d also been from Blackwell Falls, hadn’t been relevant to whether I paid my rent or put food in the fridge that month.
Now I couldn’t help wondering if it was tied to the girl I’d seen shoved into the car behind the Dive.
If it was, it was more relevant than I could have imagined.
Rafe’s comment about using the laptop to figure out what was going on so I could move out had been a throwaway insult,a way to make it clear that just because he’d bought me a laptop didn’t mean he wanted me in the house.
But it had gotten me thinking, and I’d been trying random searches on the internet for the past two hours, feeling like I was part of the rest of the world for the first time in almost two months. Actually, for the first time in even longer than that, because before I’d been chased through the woods by Vic, before I’d ended up living with the Bastards, I’d been in a world of one — mine.
And that world had been wholly focused on keeping myself alive and creating a situation that would allow Matt to get out from under my mom’s thumb if he ever decided that was what he wanted.
Now I saw that while I’d been fighting for my life, life in Blackwell Falls had kept on moving — and not always in the right direction. First there had been the scandal at Aventine University, the private college rumored to be a haven for crime families. That had been the first whiff of there being a criminal organization in town when it was discovered that some of the alumni had been kidnapping girls for decades, hunting them through the woods like animals.
Then there had been a triple murder at an old house at the top of Blackwell Falls. I recognized some of the names — Daisy Hammond, the girl who’d been accused of killing her brother, and the three men who’d eventually confessed to being the real killers.
We’d all been at Blackwell High at the same time, although no one could ever say we traveled in the same circles, mostly because I only ever traveled in one circle and it was a circle I’d orbited alone.
The murders had been tied to more missing girls, but the police hadn’t released many details since the story first broke, just vague statements about an ongoing investigation.
Was the girl who’d been shoved into the back seat of the car behind the Dive part of a bigger trafficking ring? If so, did the police know it was still happening or did they think they’d caught all the bad guys after the incident at the top of the falls?
I sighed and leaned back in the chair at the desk, the glow from my new laptop casting eerie light into the dark bedroom. It was two a.m., my own personal witching hour, the time of night when I usually found Jude in the kitchen, like he was waiting for me.
It was dangerous to seek him out, just like it was dangerous to get close to Nolan, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I thought about what Nolan had said when he’d found me kissing Jude in the kitchen, the way they’d seemed totally down for some kind of group sex or orgy or whatever you called it when two guys slept with one girl at the same time.
My pussy pulsed with desire at the thought, forbidden images rising to my mind against my will: Nolan, Jude, and me, naked and tangled in each others’ bodies, writhing and grinding and…
Holy shit.
I took a deep breath and breathed it out slow. If I had an ounce of sense in my head I’d take a cold shower and go back to bed even if it meant tossing and turning the rest of the night.
Instead I headed for the hall.
34
NOLAN
I waswide awake when I heard the door to her room open. For once, we were alone in the house and I knew if she couldn’t sleep she’d go looking for Jude.
Plus I’d been worried about her after she’d talked to her brother. She hadn’t said anything about their conversation, but I could tell from the set of her jaw, the sorrow in her eyes, that it hadn’t gone well.
I wanted to know more: why she was estranged from her family, why she’d tried to hide the fact that she was visiting her brother, what they’d talked about that had made her so sad.
It had been pretty obvious she didn’t want to talk so I’d left her alone, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still worried. Lilah’s life had obviously gotten more complicated after what we’d done to her in high school, which only made me feel like an even bigger piece of shit.