Lies I Told(74)


A wave of grief hit me like a battering ram, and I stumbled backward, stifling a sob.

“Grace!” Cormac was half out of the truck, his mask still on. “We have to go. Now.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly, taking a step backward toward the truck. “I’m sorry.”





Fifty-Seven


“Where are you going? We have to go back for Parker!”

My dad was making his way down the peninsula, careful to keep the truck under the speed limit on the winding roads.

“We can’t do that,” he said. “Not right now. We have no idea where he is, and he ditched his cell phone. We need to get off the peninsula. Then we’ll figure out what to do about Parker. We’ll keep our cell phones for a few more hours. See if he makes contact from a landline.”

Panic welled up inside me until I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to contain it. Afraid it would escape in a scream that might never stop.

“We can’t just leave him!”

My mom pulled off her mask and turned to me. “Keep it together, Grace. What do you expect us to do? Wander around Playa Hermosa with a truck full of gold looking for Parker? The police may already have him in custody. If they do, we need to get somewhere safe so we can find a way to help him. If they don’t, we have to wait until we know where to find him.”

I clutched at the armrest, scrambling for a response that would allow us to go back for Parker now. But she was right. I don’t know what I expected. Back at the Fairchild estate, all I’d been able to think about was loading the gold so we could get to Parker. I hadn’t had time to think through the how of it.

I stared out the window, watching the ocean turn silver as the sunlight threw diamonds across its surface. Parker was farther away then ever, as unreachable to me as Logan and Selena and the sham of a life I’d built in Playa Hermosa.

“See anything?” my dad asked softly as we approached the turnoff for the road that would take us off the peninsula.

“Nothing,” my mom said.

She was right. There were no cops. No checkpoints.

“They must not have him.” I heard the note of hope in my own voice. “He’s probably hiding out somewhere, waiting until it’s safe to contact us.”

My mom grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Maybe.”

I had no idea where we were going as we wound our way through a series of backstreets to the freeway. Now it was all about following the plan for our escape, carefully laid out in advance by my mom and dad. It was a system that had served us well, and I sat back, trying to make my breathing even and calm, telling myself that we’d get Parker back, that everything would be okay.

We took the freeway into downtown Los Angeles and spent ten minutes navigating a clutch of one-way streets until my dad finally pulled next to the curb in front of a parking garage. He turned to my mom.

“You all set?”

She nodded. “I’ll see you at the safe house. You and Grace get out of town if I’m not there by four. I’ll contact you through the online portal if I get sidelined.”

He touched his lips to hers in a quick kiss. “Take every precaution.”

“Will do.” She slid over to the driver’s seat as my dad climbed out of the truck.

“Let’s go, Gracie,” he said.

I reached over and gave my mom a hug. “Be careful, Mom.”

She hugged me tight, held on a little longer than usual. Then she pulled back, smoothing my hair, looking at me with tenderness. “I love you, Grace. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded. “I love you, too.”

She smiled. “Go with your dad. I’ll see you soon.”

Cormac got out of the truck and zipped up his jacket to hide the blood on his shirt. I followed him into the parking garage as my mom pulled away from the curb.

We walked up to the window and he reached into his pocket, withdrawing a ticket. He slid it through a hole in the glass to the mustached man behind on the other side.

“One moment, sir.”

He removed a set of keys from one of the hooks on the wall inside his little cubicle and stepped outside, disappearing into the shadows of the garage.

My dad put an arm around me, squeezed my shoulders. “You okay?”

I wasn’t, but I knew he wasn’t really asking. I nodded.

A couple of minutes later the attendant pulled up in a nondescript Ford Taurus. My dad tipped him and climbed into the driver’s seat while I got in the other side.

It was Saturday morning, and traffic was light as we headed back to the freeway. A few minutes later we were heading north, leaving the skyscrapers and grit of the city behind, putting more miles between us and Parker. Between me and Logan.

“Where to now?” I asked, trying to distract myself.

Cormac didn’t take his eyes off the road. “The Valley,” he said, referring to the San Fernando Valley. “We have another switch to make.”


I wasn’t surprised. We usually only switched cars once when we needed to get out clean, but this wasn’t just any job. With luck, the Fairchilds wouldn’t know what had happened for a while. Logan would wake up wondering why he’d passed out. He’d try to call me, assuming I got a ride home from Parker. It would be hours before anyone knew something was wrong, before they realized we were gone or that the gold was missing.

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