JD looked at her, brows raised. “Sure.”
He handed the phone over, and Riley played with it absently before turning to him. “I need to call my parents. I’ve got to tell them everything, come clean, and whatever happens, happens. I mean, it’s not like I can go out and track down this guy myself. The police aren’t even able to do it.” A heavy wave of sadness rolled over her. This was how it was going to be. And if someone found them in their new house, it would start all over again.
She dialed the phone while JD drove. He mouthed the word “gas” while she listened to the ringing of the phone.
“Hello?”
Riley bit her lip but pushed herself to speak. “Mom?”
“My God, Riley! Where are you? Where have you been?”
Her mother was sobbing, and guilt was twisting Riley’s gut. She blinked back tears. “I’m sorry. I’m coming home right now.”
“Riley Allen Spencer, do you know how worried we’ve all been? Deputy Hempstead and Gail have been working around the clock to find you.” It was her father now, and he did nothing to hide the spitting anger in her voice.
Riley began to cry harder. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Where are you? Who are you with? Stay where you are, I’m coming to get you. I don’t trust you to—”
“You don’t trust me?” Suddenly, she stopped crying, rage tearing through her. “I wasn’t the one lying for fourteen years! I’m not the one who is trying to force his daughter to start lying.”
“We don’t have a choice, Riley.”
JD pulled into a gas station while she sucked in a sharp breath. “You have a choice. I don’t.”
Riley watched JD stuff the gas pump into the car then jog across the pavement into the tiny store.
“I’m sorry, turnip, but we can’t take any chances.”
She swallowed hard. “Don’t worry. I’m on my way home.”
She hung up the phone without waiting for her father’s response then doubled over, holding her head in her hands. She blinked when something small and shiny caught her eye. It was embedded in the black car mat carpeting and she had to yank to get it out. She studied the silver charm in her palm, and her stomach soured.
The charm was broken.
She reached into her purse, her fingers closing around the broken angel that the “squatter” had left in the house across the street. The two pieces, when pressed together, were a perfect match.
“Oh my God.”
When Riley looked up, JD was at her window, holding a Coke out to her. His eyes skittered across the charm in her palm and went wide.
“You’ve been watching me.”
Anger, fear, and hurt welled up inside her. She blinked back tears.
“You—”
Riley went for the door handle but JD snapped the door shut again.
“You don’t understand. Just stay there and let me talk to you.”
She started to shake her head, her hands splayed as she pressed against the door. “I don’t want to talk to you. Let me out, JD.”
His lips inched into a mean grimace and his nostrils flared. “You have to trust me.”
We asked you to trust us…
A damn of hot tears broke and washed over her face, silently dripping over her chin. Everyone begged her to trust them, and everyone lied to her.
JD pushed back against the car door, his dark eyes challenging. Riley edged back on her seat, moving toward the driver’s side, and JD was around the car like a shot, pulling open the driver’s side door.
She shuffled the other way.
Riley felt the wisp of wind as JD reached for her, his fingertips grazing her hair as she kicked open the passenger’s side door and, once her feet made contact with the cement, took off running.
“Riley!”
The desperate way he screamed after her made her sick. She heard the echoes of the man from the mall, the man from the train station, Gail, and her own parents saying her name, ordering her back, wrapping her in their lies.
Riley cleared the cemented gas station and went for the grove of eucalyptus trees that butted up against it. Each time her foot fell, she heard the crush of dried leaves, the pop of twigs. The menthol scent of the grove stung at her eyes and she palmed the tears away, scanning for someplace to hide, for some way out of the grove and into safety.
“Riley, please!”
JD’s voice was behind her, barely clipping at her ear.
“I’m on your side!”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to stop running. She had wanted to stop running just after this whole thing began. She had gone from being sheltered Riley Spencer with a completely normal life to a shadow named Jane, constantly on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder.
“Riley!” JD’s voice was fading as Riley covered more ground.