Until the Day I Die(86)

“You have to be tougher than that. Smarter. You should take me back down to the campsite. Or somewhere else.”

“Just shut up. I don’t need advice from you.”

He yanks me back onto the path, but the water’s brought me to life again, and my brain is buzzing. “I have a proposition for you,” I say.

He doesn’t answer.

“You know the FBI still puts rewards out on people? That’s not just old-timey Jesse James shit; it’s the real deal. Murdering four innocent women means several million on your head. At least.”

This stops him. He plants his hands on his hips and fixes me with those spooky light-blue eyes.

I talk fast. “I’m sure cold-blooded murder must seem really badass to you until you realize that, with a jackpot like that, everybody you’ve ever crossed paths with in your entire life is going to be gunning for you. And then”—I shrug—“whoa, Nelly. The whole world after you is not good odds.”

He mops his face with a hand. He’s thinking about it. I feel a tingle, like an electrical charge zipping up my spine, the way I do every time I pull in another investor, every time I hit on a new idea. I have the best product, and I know how to make this sale.

“You know, right now, my company, Jax, is worth at least one hundred million.”

Well, closer to seven, but whatever . . .

I take one step closer to him. “I’m the CEO. I own the highest percentage of shares in the company. I have access to a database of over ten million people . . .”

It’s 1.3, but who’s counting . . .

“. . . a detailed digital trail of every single one of their bank accounts, tax filings, and financial decisions.”

I lift my chin, my eyes never leaving his. “If you let me live, I will get you access to both the money and the data. Any of it. All of it. Whatever you need to find your son.”

He snorts. “You’d never risk your company for me.”

“Not just for you. For me too. For my daughter. Lach, listen to me. Antonia isn’t the only person who can get your son back.”





49

SHORIE

When I’m clear of the restaurant, I cut down a couple of side alleys. Eventually I find myself on a road, unpaved, that’s lined with a series of small cinder block houses painted in pastel Easter egg shades. I duck around the side of one and check my phone.

Lach Erdman’s preferences are set to public, so I’m able to see his transactions (minus the dollar amount) in real time. Although it doesn’t really help me—he has exactly zero transactions as far as I can tell. But a public setting also means his location is traceable, even though after tapping the button, it takes a few minutes for the GPS signal to bounce back to me. When it does, I’m rewarded with a pulsing red dot on a map of green, all the way on the other side of the island.

Mom.

I shade my eyes. There are no cabs in sight, and the street I’m standing on is mostly deserted. A kid, a boy of ten or eleven, lolls on a banged-up moped on the sidewalk outside a pizza place. The moped’s rack is wrapped with bungee cords for deliveries.

I amble over. “Hey. This your bike?” I casually eye the controls. Kill switch, ignition button, front and back brakes. Daisy’s brother had a scooter, and I learned the basics on it a couple of years ago, but it’s been a while.

He shakes his head, then inclines it toward the pizza place.

“You’re watching it? For somebody in there?” He nods. I reach in my purse. Hold out a wad of bills. “I’ll bring it back, I promise.”

He takes the money and steps back, and I hop on, hit the kill switch, and push the ignition. The engine sputters to life, and the boy takes off down the sidewalk. I hear a voice from inside the pizza place—“Arret!”—and I open the throttle. The moped bumps over the curb and onto the street.

“Arret!”

He’s too late. I’m down the street, swerving around a corner, maneuvering down another alley, and in minutes, I’m lost in the stream of people on a busier street. I feel bad about what might happen to the boy, but I feel worse about Mom, so I keep driving until I find my way out of town. I head down a dirt road, stopping periodically to check Jax’s GPS, eventually whooshing past a long white building with a portico and fountain and a line of shiny black town cars in front.

Hidden Sands.

I don’t stop. But I do think of something, the thing that’s been tiptoeing around the edges of my brain all morning. Something Gigi had said at the beginning of the intervention. Arch had learned about Hidden Sands from a friend. It was his idea to send Mom there.





50

ERIN

I might not have closed the deal, but my pitch does seem to throw Lach off his game. At least just enough that he clams up and makes us start walking again. By the time we stop, I’ve reached a new level of exhaustion. But I don’t sit. I can’t. It’s as if my legs realize what I’m seeing before my mind does.

We’re standing at the edge of a football field–size crater of gray mud, half a dozen pools of bubbling mud belching plumes of white steam. The air is redolent with a funky stench that reminds me of two-week-old rotten eggs dipped in human excrement. It occurs to me I’ve never seen a volcano before. But I wish I never had.

If Antonia agrees to find Lach’s son, he’s going to throw me in that boiling-hot pit.