Tori

Fear burst inside Kerri’s chest, spreading icy cold through her body. She snatched the cell from her hip pocket and called Tori’s cell. Ring after ring went unanswered. When the call went to voice mail, as calmly as possible, Kerri said, “Call me. Love you.”

Hands shaking, she called Sarah’s mother next. Each unanswered ring had Kerri’s heart beating harder.

“Hello.” Renae Talley sounded exhausted, defeated.

“Renae.” Kerri caught herself. This woman’s daughter had tried to kill herself. She had to tread softly. “How is Sarah?”

For a long moment there was nothing but silence.

Was it true then? Sarah had run away, and Tori was out there somewhere trying to help her? Anguish knotted inside Kerri.

Renae cleared her throat. “She’s better. Until this morning she hadn’t spoken a word to us or anyone.”

Shock joined the fear tugging at Kerri. “You’re still at the hospital?”

“Yes.”

Kerri moistened her lips and dared to hope. “Has Tori spoken to you or Sarah?”

“No.” Renae took a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to talk about any of this since the detectives talked to Sarah only a few minutes ago, but there is something I need you to know—from mother to mother.”

Kerri’s heart stumbled.

“Sarah swears she doesn’t remember pushing Brendal. She also said Tori never suggested she do so. We didn’t press her about why she’d said so in the note. When she’s stronger, we’ll get to the bottom of this. I’m sorry . . . I don’t understand what’s happened or why.”

The tears streaming down Kerri’s face were filled with relief. She should be elated, but what she was beneath the brief flash of relief was terrified.

“Thank you for telling me,” she managed. “I’ll check in on Sarah later.”

Kerri ended the connection and called Falco. He answered on the first ring. Kerri blurted the words burgeoning in her throat, “Tori is missing.”

Every bit of restraint Kerri possessed was required to hold back a howl of misery. “She left a note saying Sarah had run away and she’d gone to help her. But I just spoke to Sarah’s mother, and she’s still in the hospital. They haven’t heard from Tori.”

“Call it in,” Falco said. “I’m on my way to you.”

40

7:50 a.m.

Sadie’s Loft

Sixth Avenue, Twenty-Seventh Street

Birmingham

Her head ached.

Sadie touched the back of her skull. Groaned at the new sore spot. She told her eyes to open, but the dreams weren’t quite ready to let her go.

She was back there . . . in Mexico. In the place where they’d kept her locked away. Eddie was there, holding her, telling her everything would be all right. The baby was crying in the background.

No. That wasn’t right. Eddie couldn’t have been with her then. He was dead.

She had killed him.

He had asked her why. Why she’d betrayed him. Sadie had told him the truth. She was a cop. Working undercover. Her real name was Sadie Cross, and she was carrying his child. She loved him, but she had a job to do, and his father was evil. What he was doing was evil.

Eddie had moved his head slowly from side to side and told her the truth. “I cannot save you.”

The weapon had been lying on his desk. It hadn’t been a pen as she’d thought; it was a gun. The two of them were in his office alone. She had a chance—slim, but still a chance.

Sadie grabbed the gun and fired without hesitating, without thinking.

He stumbled backward. Fell to the floor. Blood spreading across his chest.

She ran.

But the guards caught her before she could escape.

The girl was there . . . the one wearing the mask. She seemed bigger, older. Sadie must be mixing up the Isabella from nearly five years ago with the Alice now.

“Shh-shhh. You must be quiet.”

It was dark. Where had the day gone? Where was Eddie’s body? Sadie was confused.

“Take my hand.”

Sadie stared at the hand. Not the hand of a child. The wrinkled, gnarled hand of someone old.

“Take my hand,” the voice demanded, “and you will be invisible.”

Sadie didn’t understand, but she took the old woman’s hand. She fell into the darkness. Deeper and deeper. There was nothing but darkness. Then the voices came. His voice. Demanding that she be kept alive. And hers . . . the woman she’d heard in the conference call. The one who seemed to be making the decisions. Then Sadie had awakened under the overpass on Eighteenth.

How had she gotten there?

Sadie didn’t know the female voice she’d heard.

But she knew his voice.

It was not Carlos or Eddie.

It was her father. She’d heard him demanding that she be allowed to live.

Sadie’s eyes flew open. She blinked. Stared out the windshield of her borrowed car—the piss-yellow one.

The taste in her mouth was of vomit and something else. A drug she had tasted before.

Pain split her skull.

She touched the back of her head. Where the hell was she?

Sadie looked around. A frown pulled at her face. Made her head hurt worse. She was home. The borrowed car parked in the alley next to her place. How the hell had she gotten here?

She stared at the steering wheel, the keys . . . her hands.

Oh yeah, she’d obviously been drugged and driven here. But by who?

Her last memory was of being at the Cortez house. She had seen the girl in the mask.

Was it the girl? Alice/Isabella?

Couldn’t have been the old woman. Hell, she was probably dead by now. She’d been ancient nearly five years ago when she was serving as the healer at the Osorio compound. Eddie had said she’d been with the family since before he was born.

Eddie was dead.

Sadie had killed him.

She blinked, held perfectly still. The rest of the dream rushed in on her.

She’d heard her father’s voice.

That wasn’t possible. She must have confused the timing. She had awakened in the hospital, and he had been there. But he hadn’t been with her before that. Not under the overpass and certainly not in Mexico.

Had he?

Cross Residence

Eagle Wood Court

Birmingham, 8:30 a.m.

Sadie beat her fist against the door. She winced at the pain the sound made in her skull.