Hadley & Grace(67)

“You, on the other hand, are clean,” she continues. “So, the deal is we spin it so it’s all on me.”

Hadley’s head is already shaking. Grace ignores it. She’s thought this through. It’s the only way. She is going away regardless, but if they play their cards right, Hadley could walk away from this.

“We’ll tell them I’m the one who came up with the plan to steal the money, and that I blackmailed you into it—”

“Stop,” Hadley says, cutting Grace off. “We are not turning ourselves in, and if we do get caught, I’m telling the truth—”

“You can’t. Hadley, you need to listen to me. I know how these things work. The system, it isn’t fair. It’s not about what’s right, and it’s not like, if you play by the rules, they reward you. If you play by the rules, you get screwed. The only chance we . . . you . . . have is for us to lie. You’re a good liar, and we can make up a story that works. We can negotiate a deal ahead of time, before we turn ourselves in. We’ll promise to turn over the money and explain I planned the whole thing. You’ll claim you were acting under duress, that I had a gun and that the kids were with me when the agent showed up—”

“No!” The word is a roar. “Stop. We are not turning ourselves in. I told you, I have a plan.”

Grace grits her jaw shut and waits for Hadley to explain her plan, which, knowing Hadley, will involve beguiling border guards with fake French accents so they can sneak into Canada or chartering a private jet to fly them to Spain—some ludicrous idea that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of working. When she’s done, Grace will continue to explain the best way to spin this. Best-case scenario is Hadley walks and Grace manages to plea-bargain her sentence down to something reasonable: ten years or less. With good behavior, she’ll be out in five. She looks at Miles and pushes back the tears that fill her eyes with the thought.

“I know how to get us . . . well, you . . . out of this,” Hadley says. “I called Melissa this morning, and it’s all set. She’s sending her passport to the post office in Omaha, and I reserved a plane ticket in her name to London. You look like her. Well, not your hair, but the rest of you—your height and weight and eye color. She’s older than you, but not so old that you can’t pretend to be her. From London, you can continue on to wherever you like. The flight leaves Thursday.”

Grace blinks, then blinks three more times as she processes the words, shocked to find the idea not only not ludicrous but maybe even possible.

Hadley gives a thin, proud smile. “See, I told you I had a plan.”

“Melissa could get in a lot of trouble,” Grace says. Hadley told her that she reminded her of her friend Melissa, though when she said it, Grace thought she was talking about their personalities.

“If they trace it back to her,” Hadley says, “she’s going to say I stole the passport and her credit card information before I left. It’s why you need to fly out of Omaha, so it looks like we planned it from the start.”

Grace stares at Hadley for a long minute, surprised at how well she’s thought things through. Flying out of Omaha is brilliant. After what happened last night, it’s the last place the FBI will think they’ll choose.

“I got to thinking,” Hadley says, “after I used that woman’s license to check us in, that you could pass for Melissa. So I called her—”

Grace bolts upright, startling Hadley and stopping her. “Melissa fosters kids, right?” she says, remembering this because she was a foster kid herself, though not one lucky enough to land with someone like Melissa. “And you said one was a boy a year younger than Skipper, and the other two are in high school.”

“Yeah,” Hadley says as she shakes her head, thinking she knows where Grace is going. “I can’t pretend to be Melissa. I don’t look like her.”

“Not you. Me,” Grace says, her heart pounding very fast. “I take them. I take Mattie and Skipper with me.” The words are out before Grace has fully considered them, and only after she says them does she realize the magnitude of what she’s suggesting.

At first, Hadley looks confused, her brows furrowed as if working through a difficult equation; then they arch upward as the puzzle snaps into place. “You take them to London? Without me?”

Her head shakes as Grace nods.

More brow furrowing and head shaking, and Grace looks down at the mattress. Hadley is right. It was a stupid idea. Hadley’s known Grace less than a week; she’s not going to trust her to take her kids halfway around the world without her.

But then Hadley says, “And I would join you later?” And Grace can’t make out if it’s a question or a statement.

“Exactly,” Grace says. “You have Blaire’s license. You have money. And it would be a lot easier if you were alone. And even if they do catch you, you can use the story—”

“No.” Hadley cuts her off. “I’m not lying about what happened.”

Grace swallows.

Hadley’s expression softens. “Grace, if this doesn’t work out, I’m telling the truth. You are not going to jail.”

Prison, Grace thinks, but she doesn’t correct her.

“If they catch me, I’m telling them exactly what happened, except perhaps with a few omissions and embellishments that make you look like the superhero you are.”