In the bathroom she stood in front of the mirror and remembered the girl on the marshes, her reflection, her other. She leaned over the sink and splashed water on her face, as though it would help wash the image from her head. The cold did her good.
She was going to confront her father and get answers, and she didn’t care anymore whether he got angry, whether he ever spoke to her again, whether he ordered her out of the house.
She almost hoped he would.
She would be fine on her own. She was stronger than she’d ever thought she was. She was strong, period.
Outside, she saw Pete sitting very still with both hands on the wheel, staring at her with the strangest expression. He must be far more freaked out than he was letting on. His eyes looked enormous, like they might simply roll out of his head, and she felt a burst of gratitude for him. He was trying, for her sake, to act normal.
“All right, Rogers.” She was speaking even as she yanked open the door. “Passenger gets DJ privileges, so hands off the radio—” All her breath left her body at once.
There was a man sitting directly behind Pete, holding a gun to his head. She knew him instantly: it was the man who’d grabbed her outside the gas station. The same long, greasy hair, the same gray stubble and wild look.
“Get in the car and shut the door,” he said. His eyes went left, right, left, right. She wanted to move, but she was frozen. Even the air had turned leaden. She was drowning where she stood. “In the car,” he said again, practically spitting. She saw the gun trembling in his hand and realized he was panicking. She nearly tripped getting into the car. She felt as if her whole body was coming apart.
“Okay,” she managed to say. She got the door shut and held up both hands. Think, think. Her phone was in her pocket. If she could somehow dial 9-1-1 . . . “Okay, listen. Just calm down, okay? Let’s everyone stay calm. You can have my wallet. You can have anything you want.”
“I didn’t come for money,” the man said. He nudged Pete with the gun. Pete had gone so pale Gemma could see a vein, blue and fragile-looking, stretching across his temple. “Drive.” She was amazed that Pete managed to get out of the parking lot without hitting anything. She was amazed by Pete, period. She’d never been so scared in her life. Her stomach was cramping, and she was worried she might go to the bathroom right there.
“Please,” she said. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Please. What do you want?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. But he didn’t sound as if he meant it. Gemma could smell him sweating in his old camouflage jacket. Rick Harliss. The name came back to her from the article she had read about Emily Huang and her involvement with the Home Foundation. He’d once worked for her father. He’d lost a daughter, Brandy-Nicole, when he went to jail. “I just want to talk, okay? That’s all I want. That’s all I ever wanted. Someone to listen. No one fucking listens, no one believes. . . .”
He was getting agitated. His hand was shaking again. She was worried he might accidentally discharge the gun.
“We’ll listen,” she said. “We’ll listen all you want. Isn’t that right, Pete?”
“Sure,” he said. His voice cracked. He licked his lips. “Of course we will.”
“Keep going,” Rick Harliss said, giving Pete a nudge in the neck again when he started to slow down at a yellow light. Instead Pete sped through it. “Highway,” Harliss said, when they came up on signs for I-27, and a sour taste flooded Gemma’s mouth. Somehow getting on the highway made everything seem irreversible. Not like she would have rolled out of the car at a red light, but still.
She closed her eyes. She needed to focus. “Okay, you want to talk. So let’s talk, okay?” She’d heard once that in abduction situations it was important to share personal information, to get chatty, to humanize yourself. “Let’s start with names, okay? This is my friend Pete. Pete has terrible taste in music—”
“Shut up,” Harliss said. “I’m trying to think.”
“—but he’s a decent guy, all around, really. Probably the most decent guy I’ve ever met.” Gemma realized, even as she said it, how true it was. Poor Pete and the mess she’d dragged him into. And he’d never complained, not once. If they made it through without getting shot or butchered, she was going to buy him a lifetime supply of gummy bears.
She was going to kiss him.
“Gemma,” Pete said softly, and his voice held a warning, but she didn’t care.
“And my name is Gemma Ives,” she said. “Germ Ives. At least that’s what the girls in my grade always called me, because I was sick a lot as a kid—”
“I know who you are.” Harliss’s voice cracked. “Jesus. Stop talking, okay? You’re making my head hurt.”
Gemma pressed her hands hard into her thighs, digging with her fingernails, letting the pain focus her. She was scared to anger him further. But she had to make him see that she understood, that she knew him. That she was on his side. She had to buy them time. “I know who you are, too, Mr. Harliss.”
Pete sucked in a sharp breath. For a split second the silence in the car was electric, and she worried she’d made a mistake. She was in too deep to stop now. She had to keep talking.
“You used to work for my dad, didn’t you? I must have been just a little kid. But still. That day at the gas station. My dog recognized you. After all these years, he knew your smell.”
“What did your dad tell you about me?” Harliss asked. He sounded like he was talking through a mouth full of nails.