Elusion(73)

“I’m sorry. I should’ve. I made a mistake.”

“Was it a mistake?” I challenge him. “Or did you know that I wouldn’t go to Orexis and steal that information off Patrick’s computer if I knew Avery was somehow involved?”

Josh’s eyes flick back to me. “Maybe.”

I open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. I suppose I didn’t expect him to own up to that.

“Going to Avery wasn’t preplanned or anything. But she wants Nora back just as much as I do. That’s why she’s been so aggressive about the safety of Elusion since the beginning,” he continues. “Her heart is in the right place; she just goes about things the wrong way.”

“I want to believe that, Josh. I do. But honestly, Avery can’t stand me because she loathes Patrick. How can you trust that she won’t keep certain information to herself just to shut me out? Or that she’ll leak what we’ve done to the public or the police? I’ve come too far for her to ruin everything.”

“She promised that when she had a breakthrough with the QuTap, she’d set up a time to meet. She won’t screw us over,” he says. “Anyway, whatever crimes we’ve committed, she’s an accessory now. Her ass is on the line too.”

I hesitate. I think he believes what he’s saying—I’m just not sure I can.

“I’m going to earn your trust back, I swear. Just let me show you.” A faint sparkle returns to his gorgeous golden-brown eyes when he lowers his hand and gently grazes my arm. “So are we good?”

“I think so,” I say, hoping that I’m not making a huge mistake by listening to my heart. “As long as you assure me that you two aren’t hatching some kind of diabolical plan together.”

“To do what, exactly?”

I contemplate telling Josh about what Cathryn said in her car last night—about setups and corporate spies—but it all seems so ridiculous now, especially since there’s another piece of evidence that connects Nora and my father’s lives. In fact, I’m kind of wondering if Cathryn maybe wasn’t trying to throw me off Patrick’s scent . . .

God, if we don’t make more headway soon, how many more people am I going to add to this list of possible conspirators?

“Nothing, just forget it.”


There’s a brief moment where it seems like he’s going to lean in and kiss me, but he reclines instead, slouching down so he can rest his head on the back of the sofa. I’m disappointed, but I can’t really blame him for missing his cue. He’s hanging on by a thread.

“So did you get anywhere with Patrick?”

“Sort of,” I say.

Then I replay the whole gruesome scene at Erebus Tower, giving Josh all the details of my showdown with Patrick—what he admitted to, what I accused him of, the ultimatum I gave him, and my shocking confession about the QuTap. When I’m done giving the blow-by-blow, Josh sits there, completely dumbfounded. Actually, after listening to myself tell the story, I’m dumbfounded too.

“Wait, you bluffed Patrick Simmons, boy genius? He thinks we might crack the code.”

I nod.

“Wow. Didn’t think anyone but Avery could pull that off.”

“And there’s something else,” I say. “Wait here.”

I fly up the steps with a surge of adrenaline that floods through me, washing away any last residual effects from the Zolpidem. My mind is clear now, and I start writing a mental checklist of all the things I have to tell Josh about. Nora’s note, first and foremost, but also what happened between my mom and me.

Once I get to my room, I grab my tab and zoom back down the stairs, where Josh is still sitting on the couch. I’m so excited to tell him about the anagram discovery that I begin prattling on about it without even noticing that he’s staring at the InstaComm wall. I explain how I rearranged the letters in “Hate Our New Land” so they spelled out “Walden Thoreau,” and bring up the diagram I drew on the tab’s screen. When he doesn’t react at all, that’s when I realize he’s not listening to me.

My eyes track his gaze and I see that Patrick’s image is pulled up on the InstaComm. But the message isn’t paused like before—Josh seems to have listened to the end while I was in my bedroom retrieving my tab. I’m two seconds away from chewing him out for invading my privacy when he picks up the remote and replays the last bit of Patrick’s call.

“Tonight at nine. Special invite code twenty-three hundred and one. You have to come.

“I just heard from our lawyers. The news is going to break in a few hours, but I wanted to tell you myself.” Patrick looks away from the camera, pausing, but when he glances back up, his eyes are heavy with a sadness I haven’t seen since . . .

“Anthony Caldwell is dead,” Patrick says, his voice cracking into a million pieces.

Then he leans forward and presses a button on his InstaComm wall, and the screen fades to black.





FIFTEEN


“SO WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL HER?” I ASK Josh. “About Anthony, or the anagram?”

He and I are strolling down the old Detroit boardwalk toward a very conspicuous-looking Avery Leavenworth. She’s standing in front of the dilapidated Cullen Family Carousel, wearing the same light-enhancing sunglasses that Zoe had on the other day and a long trench coat. Her hair is pulled back into a loose, low ponytail, and her fingernails are painted black. It’s almost as though she doesn’t want to be recognized.