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“What do you mean he disappeared?”
“He... he left me. He needed to go somewhere where I wasn’t, and apparently that was Mexico. We saw it onEntertainment Todayor whatever the fuck it’s called. Someone photographed him there. I need to go there. Today. I’m on the way to the airport right now.”
She mumbled something to someone, then I heard thetapping of a keyboard. “Okay. You’re gonna have to explain the whole ‘he left me’ part of that at another time.”
For some stupid reason, I had to blink back tears. “Yeah, sure. I just need to get there today and I’ve never actually booked flights before.”
“Please tell me you have your passport.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, you’re probably not going to like this,” she said, and I had an awful feeling she was about to say there were no flights at all. “But there’s nothing private going. There’s not even first class or business on commercial. But I can get you on a flight that leaves in... jeez, just over an hour. Can you make that?”
I looked at Becca and she winced and nodded. “Just hope the TSA line isn’t long.”
“The ticket’s in economy,” Amber added.
I didn’t care.
“I’ll take it.”
TEN
I’d beento Mexico many times. Admittedly, that was to Mexico City and I’d flown there in a private jet.
Flying economy on a commercial airline was a whole new experience, and not one I’d be too excited to do again.
There was a smell I couldn’t quite place and a screaming kid a few rows back.
But I paid for Wi-Fi—only after I heard someone complaining about having to pay for Wi-Fi. I had no clue that was a thing.
But it allowed me to find that photo of Luke online, then set about trying to find where the hell it was actually taken.
After absolutely no luck, I had an idea.
Atrous fan accounts on social media . . .
They used to be able to pinpoint our locations from some random thing in the background. Down to a few feet. It was frightening. I remember one time when some fans recognized a shirt Maddox had worn by the stitching and could provide photos of the two times he’d worn it years before.
There was nothing they couldn’t find.
So I began searching hashtags, anything to do with Atrous or Luke, and then I began scrolling.
And bingo.
Someone had Google Maps screenshots of the surrounding beach, the cabana in the background. They even had the brand and cost of the clothes he was wearing.
La Fortuna Beach, northeast of Cabo.
Freaking hell.
Okay, so that person should be working for the CIA...
But then I saw all the comments about Luke and Vana breaking up, about how terrible I’d looked in the photo with those girls in the record store, how these two facts must be related...
I mean, they weren’t wrong.
But for fuck’s sake.
