A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(76)

“Did you tell her anything about the cult? Did you tell her to leave it?”

“Nah. She never listens to anything I say anyway. I didn’t want to pick a fight with her.”

Abby grinned at him, relieved. “Brian, would you be willing to come with me for a few days?”





CHAPTER 50


For a second, when he opened the supply room’s door, he thought the kid was dead. His face was pale and pasty, his body completely still. But then, exhaling with relief, he heard the kid’s breathing. Weak and raspy. That wasn’t his fault. He’d wanted to keep the kid as safe and comfortable as humanly possible. Wasn’t that why he’d gone to all that effort?

It was Nathan’s fault for using his kindness against him.

He pulled the kid to his feet, dragged him, moaning, to his room.

He’d spent the last hour stripping this room of anything that might be used against him. So if Nathan now had to stand by his desk while drawing, because there was no chair, he could only blame himself.

The kid’s back looked bad. He took off the bloody shirt, eliciting a groan of pain as the wound began bleeding again. Peering closely, he saw the skin around the scratch was inflamed. A few fibers still stayed caked under the clotted blood.

He soaked a rag and cleaned the scratch. The kid whimpered.

“It’s your fault. Your fault,” he kept saying through clenched teeth. “You did this. It was your fault I had to defend myself and get rid of that man. That’s all on you.”

The sensation of his knife sinking into that man’s throat was still fresh in his mind. An unpleasant feeling. A nauseating feeling.

But it had been self-defense. It was the kid’s fault he had even been in that position. He’d had no choice. He’d given it a lot of thought, and there was nothing he could have done. Surely not once that kid had pointed him out as his abductor.

He dressed Nathan in a fresh shirt and took off the boy’s other shoe and sock. Then he left the room, his nerves rattled.

He picked up his phone and checked Gabrielle’s Instagram account again. Skimmed the comments on the latest posts with the links to her own interview and Eric Layton’s interview. The fake sympathy her fans threw at her made him sick. If they cared, they’d do more than post a broken heart emoji. They’d contribute to the fundraiser.

A sudden worry nagged at him as he stared at his phone. A lurking anxiety, like the feeling he got when he thought he’d left the oven on or that he’d forgotten to lock his car.

He checked it to make sure he had nothing to worry about.

But there was a reason to worry after all. It was right there on his phone’s screen.

Eric Layton had something. Something too dangerous to be left alone.

He would have to be dealt with.

There was no choice. It was self-defense.





CHAPTER 51


Eric was finally putting his photoshopping skills to good use.

As a teenager, he used to edit photos for fun. He could lose himself for hours tweaking photos to create ridiculous images. Adding Nicolas Cage’s face to family pictures. Or giving people cat whiskers. Or his magnum opus—manipulating the group photo of the school’s football team by shifting their faces around. He’d managed to get the manipulated image in the school paper, and no one had noticed the switch.

When he’d first met Gabrielle, she’d asked him to help her adjust a photo of hers. That was the word she always used. Adjust. They weren’t making her thinner; they were “adjusting” her hips. They weren’t changing her eye color; they were “adjusting” it.

But Gabrielle was always so sweet and kind to him, and he enjoyed spending time with her. He didn’t mind adjusting her photos. When her Instagram profile became popular and began making money from sponsored products, he was happy to keep helping her. His friends said he should charge her money, but it wasn’t like it was a job. Besides, she didn’t really need his “adjusting” services; she was beautiful without his editing assistance.

Still, he knew he wasn’t exactly making the world better when she constantly asked him to make her hips slimmer and her lips more pronounced.

But now he was actually trying to make a difference.

He had the image of Nathan holding the newspaper enlarged on his screen. He scanned it pixel by pixel, searching for signs of editing. It was easy when you knew what to look for. He went over the objects in the image, hunting for jagged edges or mismatched lighting—the telltale signs of photo manipulation.

That was what people didn’t realize. Editing a digital image was an art. And if you were an amateur, it showed.

After three hours, his neck and right hand were completely cramped, and he took a short break, groaning, moving his head left and right. Maybe his interview had been published. He checked the New Yorker Chronicle website and saw that it was there. For a second, a rush of excitement flooded his body at seeing his name like that online. Then a wave of guilt washed over him. The only reason his name was there was because Gabrielle’s brother had been kidnapped. Was he happy that a child had been kidnapped? Really?

Still, she’d probably want him to post a link to the article on his Twitter, right? She’d told him she needed as many people as possible to hear about the abduction. She needed the followers for the ransom contributions. He’d just post the interview. He wouldn’t say anything in the caption about himself. This was not about him. It was about her.