Page 152 of Mess With Me

“I’m okay, Ford,” I say. I’m not really, but I’m not going to kill myself on this highway. Not before I get to her.

“I heard back from Yang. He says security footage shows an unmarked van parking in the garage under the office. Guys went up dressed like pest control.”

If I could spare the loss of vision, I’d pinch the bridge of my nose. “We have the tightest security in Manhattan, and yet the front desk downstairs lets up guys in fucking bug spray suits?”

“Security’s not much use when the intruders have a top clearance badge.”

Whoever took Lionel took his access cards, too.

I grimace. “Makes sense how they got it to go up so fast.”

In the five hours since we left the city, McCrae & Associates isn’t just bankrupt; it’s gone. Someone—soldiers in Creelman’s organization, we’re pretty sure—got into what looks like every corner of the office with blowtorches disguised as insecticide canisters. They used Lionel’s security badges to breeze past security. Everything’s encrypted at McCrae, no paperwork left unscanned or unshredded, but whoever did this didn’t want to take any chances.

It was sheer luck that Ford was out of there before they came in. We were already en route to Quince Valley when it happened, because of that text Sasha sent. And much worse, because she hasn’t responded since.

I still don’t know where she is, and that fact makes me feel like someone’s scraped out my insides with a rusty spoon.

There are only two reasons Sam Macklin would have tracked his sister down: either he and Creelman’s people need her for leverage or something worse, or he knows what’s going down and he’s genuinely concerned for her well-being.

I can only pray, knowing he cared for her once, that it’s the second. But with her missing, I’m too much of a pragmatist to think it’s anything but the first.

CHAPTER42

Sasha

After we eat, Chester says he wants to go out on the porch to look at the stars. There must be a new moon, because I can’t see it, but the stars are brilliant and bright on their own, casting a bluish light on us as we sit down in the rockers we bought for just this purpose. It’s crisp outside, but beautiful. I bundle myself up in my coat and bring out a blanket for Chester, tucking it around his legs.

He tsks when I tuck it in, but I can tell he likes being fussed over.

I didn’t bring up his grandfather’s things during dinner. I shouldn’t bring them up now, either. But it’s been gnawing at me. Now, as we rock in easy silence on the yet-to-be stained boards, the chickens bedded down in their coop, I badly want to bring him up.

I also look over at the third chair, wishing badly Griffin was here with us.

A snap in the woods makes me glance into the darkness. We’re surrounded on all sides, with the patch of open grass between here and the path to Griffin’s behind me.

“Plenty of raccoons around here this time of night,” Chester says reassuringly when he sees me peering over my shoulder.

Then I hear the flick of a lighter.

I whip around to see Chester’s face lit up as he lights a giant cigar.

“What the hell, Chester?”

“Don’t you even think about telling me to put this out,” he says. Then he hoots like the Chester I first met, and all I can do is shake my head and laugh along with him.

We’re silent for a few minutes, and I relax into the creaking of the rockers under us, along with the soft puff and crackle of Chester inhaling his cigar smoke. I really should text Cass—I told her I was going to Chester’s for dinner, but it’s half past nine now. She’s bound to be worried, especially after what happened with Sam today.

“Did you remember to charge your phone?” I ask him now. He was supposed to go and do that after dinner, not dig up an old stogie.

“What do you take me for?”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s in my room. Didn’t know I had to charge the damn thing when I don’t ever use it.”

He’s got the same flip phone as me, but when I asked to borrow it, it was dead.

I roll my eyes, a smile on my lips. But it falls as I think of Sam. Despite my vow not to think about him, the longer the night’s gone on, the more I’ve started to worry.

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