Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2)(29)

She turned the lights off in the bathroom and went to her bag with determination. She would be here for a while, and she’d get used to it. Though she was in a new place, there was no reason she couldn’t have a bit of order and discipline.

She unpacked her suitcase, hanging up her clothes in the closet and putting her undergarments away in the dresser drawers that smelled vaguely of lavender sachets. She frowned when she noticed a blue sweatshirt wedged into the corner of her bag. It was Rhiannon’s favorite one. How had it gotten in her suitcase?

She pulled the hoodie out and shook it. A small scrap of paper fell to the floor. She picked it up and found Jia’s handwriting.

Rhiannon told me to give this to you in case you need a hug. Does that make sense? I thought it was weird but figured I’d pack it for you.

She clutched the cotton close to her. She was very lucky in her friendships.

She drew the hoodie on, even though it didn’t go with her outfit. Rhiannon was taller than her and skinnier, and she couldn’t close it over her chest without smashing her breasts down. That was okay, it fit fine. Sisterhood of the traveling hoodie.

Katrina grabbed her phone and took a selfie, sending it to Rhiannon and Jia in their group chat. She purposefully kept her tone light and cheerful.

Everything’s fine! Got here safely. Thanks for the present, Rhi.

Her phone rang immediately. She didn’t know what time it was for Rhiannon, but she imagined her best friend must be dead-tired. She answered. “Hey. Are you at your hotel?”

“Just got here.”

“How’s India?”

“Hot and seen through jet-lagged eyes. I have been waiting for you to wake up. What the hell are you doing in Yuba City? Where is that, even?”

Katrina’s smile was rueful. “Jia told you.”

“No, I tracked you.”

“Did you?” Katrina rubbed the skin under her ear. Funny, she didn’t feel a chip there. “Ah. How’d you do that?”

“I have Find Friends set up on yours and Jia’s phones.”

“Oh right.” When Jia had come to live with them, they’d followed each other on the tracking app. Now that Katrina thought about it, she wondered if that made her phone less secure. She made a mental note to ask Jas.

“I’m glad to have it. I get worried. I listen to true crime podcasts.”

“You know you’re too paranoid to listen to those.”

“Okay, fair. Now answer my questions.”

“I’m north of Sacramento.”

“I don’t mean where literally, I mean, like . . . where in the grand scheme of things?”

“I actually don’t know what you’re asking.”

“What the hell are you doing in the middle of nowhere, Katrina?” Worry dripped off her words.

“It’s not the middle of nowhere.” Katrina went to the window and squinted out at the landscape. All she could see were trees from here, and a little barn set off from the house, its red paint chipped and weathered. “I mean, it’s rural and definitely small, but I skimmed the tourism page and there are many shops and restaurants. A Target.”

“A Target is not a surefire sign of civilization. It’s a sign that your wallet is empty because you walked in to buy milk and left two hundred dollars poorer. With no milk.”

“Do you know the Target Effect is a real thing? Social scientists think it has something to do with the lighting—”

“Katrina. Stop trying to distract me. Why did you leave the house?”

Katrina traced a finger down the window, where her face was reflected in the glass. “I had to go.”

“I’ve been monitoring since yesterday, even while I was in the air. I’m certain this will blow over. If you let me tell Lakshmi, we can even make sure it does blow over.”

Rhiannon’s assistant was impressive, but Katrina didn’t know how she’d make the internet bow to her. Katrina had already considered and dismissed flexing legal muscle yesterday. The tweets were, literally, everywhere. “You can tell Lakshmi, but I don’t want her, like . . . hacking the CIA or whatever she might want to do.”

“She has never hacked a government database.”

Interesting, that left a lot of other databases for Lakshmi to hack.

“I know this sucks, but are you sure you shouldn’t be home? I worry about you out there, in a place I don’t even know, and me not in the country—”

“I told you I was kidnapped once,” she blurted out. She’d given Rhiannon the barest of explanations back then, mostly to explain the scar on her cheek.

They’d met a few years prior, at a party, when Katrina was twenty-two. For once, Katrina hadn’t needed to be prodded by her opportunistic dad to go speak to a wealthy person. Even in her twenties, Rhiannon had glowed with a confident, brilliant light. She seemed bigger than she was, her personality shining out of her.

Katrina had felt like the opposite at the time. Smaller than she looked. She’d craved what Rhiannon had. Her self-esteem had been so low, she’d been shocked when Rhiannon had seemed to return her desire for friendship.

Rhiannon sucked in a breath. “Is the kidnapper out? Because I’ll kill him.”

“Thank you for that offer of murder, but he’s still in a British jail and will be for a while.”