Page 126 of Always Knew It Was You

“I didn’t know his name,” he starts, “only that he had a burn on the side of his face. I think he got it from a fire, the one that killed Emma’s parents. He set that fire to burn down the hotel because of everything it had taken from him.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I think his dad was one of the thieves who tried to steal the pearl over fifty years ago. And after that, his life went to shit because his dad had to go into hiding, abandoning his family. He blamed his dad’s partner for it, the one who ran off with the lady. He wanted them to pay. So he wanted me to find out what I could about where the man and his kids were. He thought I could use Emma’s diary and my knowledge of people in this town, my closeness with Poppy and Grandpa who were both alive during the robbery, to figure it out. He said if I did, he would give me a lot of money and I could take Carly and my mom and skip town.” Nate’s eyes drop as he considers his laced fingers. “That’s all I’ve wanted to do. To get away from here, to start somewhere new where I wasn’t Nate the thief and I could give them a fighting chance away from our bullshit family.” His voice shakes, as he grips his fingers “After some poking around, I found something. A name, but I couldn’t give it to him. I couldn’t destroy someone else’s life just to save ours. So I told him that the lead didn’t pan out. Tried to convince him that it was nothing, but he didn’t believe it. I didn’t count on how insane he is. And now that he has her, if I don’t give him the name, he’s going to hurt her to get back at me.”

“Fucking damn it, Nate,” I snap. “Why didn’t you warn us? I could have protected her better if you had told us what was going on.”

“I’m sorry.” Misery battles with the rage in every line of his face. “I didn’t mean for any of this to fucking happen. I just… I didn’t want to tell her. She was already so ashamed of me. I didn’t want to make her even more disappointed. And I thought… I thought he would stay away because of the FBI and all the media surrounding this case. I thought he would let it go, or at least that he would only come after me. Like I said, I underestimated how crazy he is.”

“You did,” I say coldly because it’s true. Nate fucked up and because of his fuck up, this crazy asshole has my Carly now and there is nothing I can do.

“Take me to him,” Nate says. “I’ll pretend to give him what he wants in exchange for Carly. By the time he figures out that I’ve tricked him, we’ll be far away and Carly will be safe.”

“He’ll kill you.”

He smiles sadly. “Maybe that’s how it needs to end. Maybe I need to do one good thing for once in my miserable life.”

I should feel pity for him. I know I should, somewhere in my mind. But right now, my heart is stone. And it will be until I get Carly back.

Nate’s plan sounds like a fine one. But there are still too many loopholes and too many ways it could go wrong. What if this madman asks for confirmation of the lead before we can make the exchange? What if he changes his mind and decides to kill Carly anyway? And what the fuck does Jordan and Hal have to do with it?

I need to figure it out.

On my way out of the station, Declan calls me and I answer.

“Hal’s here,” he says before I can speak. “He wants to talk to you.”

I’m filled to the brim with loathing but I smile anyway. “What a coincidence. I want to talk to him too.”

The night sky glitters as I break traffic laws getting to the Marriott. I head to Declan’s hotel suite and find Hal standing in the middle of his living room.

Rage overpowers my mind and I charge at him but Declan steps between us.

“Let me go,” I tell him.

“No,” Declan responds. “He’s not a part of this, he’s here to help.”

“I suspected what my father was up to,” Hal starts speaking quickly, probably smart given the fury in my face. “He’s done this before. With the fire... the one that...” He shoots a quick look at Emma who’s sitting on the couch and staring into the air, looking pale like she just received shocking news. “He and Craig, the man who took Carly, they were supposed to meet up at the hotel to talk. But Dad didn’t know that Craig planned to burn down the hotel and wanted them to do it together. He made Dad help him, and I was supposed to wait in the car, but I was hiding behind a pillar, watching the whole thing. Craig got burned because he accidentally got a little gasoline on his face and was so crazy for revenge that he didn’t notice before he set the fire. I got burned because I ran in there trying to help people.” He smiles sardonically. “Obviously, I was a kid so I couldn’t do anything, even before my dad dragged me out. I couldn’t stop him then. And I couldn’t tell anyone that he set the fire because I didn’t want my dad to go to jail. Craig disappeared from town after that, and Dad swore to me after that he wouldn’t involve himself with him like that again. But recently I caught him talking to Craig again. I knew they were planning something, but I didn’t know what it was.”

“How the fuck do you think I’m supposed to believe you?” I snarl. “How do I know this isn’t just a part of their plan?”

Hal swallows and then he quickly takes off his jacket. He’s wearing a white faded vest underneath it, but that’s not what he wants to show me. He holds out his arm, revealing a gnarly burn mark on the underside of his forearm.

“Like I said, I was at the fire,” he says. “I got hurt when I tried to stop it, but Dad hid that from everyone so no one would know. He thought they would ask questions about what I was doing there in the first place and it would lead back to him. It’s why I always wear a jacket, even when it’s hot. I thought eventually people would forget and I could take it off but I couldn’t take the risk.”

His story makes sense, but my mind is still overtaken by suspicion. I can’t trust Hal. I don’t think I can trust anyone right now.

“Where are they?” I ask him regardless.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “They’re still in New York I think. I heard them speaking about a cabin in the woods owned by Craig’s dad. It’s where he hid out all those years ago.”

“Do you know how many cabins in the woods are in fucking New York?” I snarl but then another thought occurs to me. I think about what Carly said and why she got hit.

She revealed something. She gave me a hint.Trailer trash.She knew that would bother me to hear her say that about herself, but she said it to give me a hint. And they hit her for it.

“It’s a trailer,” I say. “Not a cabin. A trailer park. Maybe an abandoned one.”

“How many abandoned trailer parks are there in New York?” Declan asks.

---