Moments after that photo was taken, the police showed up at my house. When Daniel and I arrived, the block was crowded with squad cars, their lights casting a red-blue hue over everything.
But we were too late.
The house was empty. My dad, Scarlett, my stepmom and the mystery man, all dead. There was only one indication they had even been there: an overturned chair in the living room and a single drop of blood on the carpet.
It was my father's blood, confirmed by Detective Carter after some testing.
That was three days ago.
Three days of police interviews, FBI intervention, Amber alerts and abject terror. Three full days of my phone not ringing with a ransom demand, no threats, no nothing. Just horrifying silence.
"You have to stick to your routine," Detective Carter had told him yesterday. "Go to class. Act normal. If they're watching, and we believe they are, we don't want them to know that we're closing in."
So there I was, strolling along campus at 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning like my world wasn't collapsing in on itself. As if my father weren't being held hostage by a lunatic stepsister and whatever the hell kind of scheme had been working its way around me from day one.
"You okay?" "Howdy do," Ella says, falling in step beside me. She'd stayed with me that first night after the news, crashing on my dorm room floor, even bringing me food I couldn't eat.
"I'm terrified," I admitted. "But I have to keep moving. If I keep on trying to call out to him, if I start imagining what they're doing to him."
"Don't. Don't go there." She squeezed my hand. "The FBI is good at this. They'll find him."
I have the English Literature on my first period. Professor Morrison waxed on about symbolism in The Great Gatsby as I stared blankly at the page of my notebook, unable to see anything but that photo of my father's panicked face.
Second class: Calculus. My vision was going black with numbers — random, random numbers.
Third class: Biology. I sat at the back of the room, phone wedged beneath my desk, waiting for a call that did not come.
Lunch with Ella in the ref. She gossiped about mundane things: her new boyfriend, drama with her roommate, the upcoming homecoming dance. I appreciated that she was trying to divert me, but everything was muffled under water.
And finally, my last class of the day.
Introduction to Psychology.
Daniel's class.
I had not seen him since the police had sent us off to be questioned separately at my home. They had warned the two of us to stay professional, not to allow anyone ammunition against the investigation. But I needed to see him. Needed to know he was all right, that we were all right.
By the time I got there, the auditorium was half full. Day of the show, I took a seat in the middle somewhere, not too close and yet not so far. Professional. Normal.
Students streamed in, talking about weekend plans and exam pressure. Addison went through, and briefly she made eye contact with me before quickly turning away, guilt written all over her face. She had testified for the Feds, cooperated happily after Scarlett's flight.
The clock hit 2:00 PM.
And Daniel was the next one in and when he walked into that room my breath caught.
He looked exhausted. Black bags under his eyes, his hair, always impeccable, somewhat ruffled. But when his glance swept through the room and found me, something ignited relief, but concern too and that fiery connection we'd always shared.
"Good afternoon, everyone!" he said in his professor voice. "Today we are talking about trauma responses and how the mind deals with catastrophic stress."
The irony wasn't lost on me.
Daniel spent the next forty-five minutes lecturing on fight-or-flight responses, dissociation and PTSD. There were his eyes, meeting mine again and again but not speaking. Are you okay? I'm here. We'll get through this.
"Trauma comes all kind of ways," Daniel went on, pacing back and forth at the front. "At times, the mind protects itself through compartmentalization, putting an event in a box that's outside of regular life. This is what allows us to function, to go through the world and feel normal, even when our world is falling apart."
He was talking about me. About us.
"But compartmentalizing" is only a solution for so long, he said softly. "Eventually, the walls break down. And when they do, the individual needs help. Connection. Someone to help them make sense of what they've experienced."
A hand shot up in the front row, from a girl. "Let me ask you this, Professor Anderson, what is there to do if the trauma never ends? What if we're not out of the woods?"
Daniel's jaw tightened. "Then you survive. Hour by hour. Minute by minute. You believe the people who try to help you, and you don't lose hope."
The lecture ended at 2:50 PM. Students filed out, some staying behind to ask questions. I packed my bag slowly and lingered.
"Miss Miller," Daniel called once the classroom was cleared. "Could you stay for a moment? I have to talk with you about your recent assignment."
The door closed. We were alone.
"Brook." He flowed across the room in three long strides to sweep me into his arms. "God, I've been going crazy. Are you okay? Have you heard anything?"
"Nothing." I held on to him, inhaling his ordinary smell. "Daniel, it's been three days. What if—"
"Don't. He's alive. For whatever they're planning, they need him alive." His hand cupped my face. "The FBI has leads. Detective Carter phoned me this morning. I think they've found a lead on them somewhere upstate."
Hope flared. "Really? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Because they're not sure yet. They won't get anyone's hopes up until —" His phone buzzed. He took it out, and his face changed as he read the screen. "It's Carter. They found something."
"Hello?" he responded, putting it on speaker. "Detective?"
"Professor Anderson, is Miss Miller in there with you?"
"I'm here," I said quickly. "What did you find?"
We followed our mysterious man from the bar. His name is Marcus Webb. He's a private eye, been tailing you for months. We found his apartment, and..." A pause. "Prep for Brooklyn, is the message. What we have found indicates this is a lot deeper than we realized."
"What do you mean?"
"Webb was employed by your stepmother six months before she became your father's spouse. She's been laying this one out for over two years." Papers rustled in the background. "We also turned up evidence that she was aware of Professor Anderson. That she set you up to meet her at that bar."
My legs gave out. Daniel caught me, sinking me into a chair.
"That's impossible," I whispered. "I went to that bar randomly. Daniel was just—"
"Not random," Detective Carter said, grimly. Webb was the one behind the bar that night. He served you the drinks, got you two together. Your stepmother has been pulling all the strings in your life, getting you ready for this moment.
"But why?" Daniel demanded. "What's the endgame?"
"We're still piecing that together. But we found something else. Documents about your father's company, Brooklyn. Did you know he just rewrote his will?"
"No." The word was removed, like I'd spoken it from the other side of a long tunnel. "He never mentioned."
Two months back, he left you everything. His company, his assets, everything. Worth approximately thirty million dollars."
The room spun.
"If your father dies of natural causes, your stepmother gets nothing," Detective Carter went on. "But if you die first, or get arrested, or declared insane … then as his wife, she gets it all."
"Oh my God," I breathed. "She's been trying to ruin me for the money."
"Exactly. And now that those tactics have failed, she's escalating. If she's planning on strong-arming your father to switching the will again, we think..." He let the sentence trail, but the meaning was clear.
Then kill him.
"Where are they?" Daniel inquired, his arm around me firm. "Do you have a location?"
"We're closing on an upstate property within the hour. "But Brooklyn, there's something else you need to know." Another pause, longer this time. "We found some evidence that Scarlett at least wasn't informed of her mom's plan. Not until recently. She thought she was just battling Jayce but her mom had plans for using her, inflaming her insecurities and turning her on even more."
"So Scarlett's a victim too?" I refused to believe it.
"In a way. Doesn't justify what she did, but … it's complicated. "All we want right now is for you guys to stay where you are, stay safe, and let us do the rest of this rescue."
"When will you know something?" I asked desperately.
"Two hours. Maybe three. And I'll call the phone moment when we have him."
The line went dead.
Daniel and I didn't say anything, the reality of everything looming over us.
"Two years," I finally said. "This has been her design for two years. There watching me, controlling me, getting in with me."
"And she used me to do it." Daniel's voice was hollow. That night at the bar, it wasn't fate. It wasn't a chance. It was all orchestrated."
"Does that change anything?" I looked up at him. "Between us? Knowing it started as manipulation?"
He fell silent for what felt like a very, very long time. "I don't know," he admitted. "Can I trust anything that I felt was true?" Or was I living in somebody else's scenario?"
The question lingered between us, toxic and uncertain.
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
My hands shook as I answered. "Hello?"
"Brooklyn." The cold, measured voice of my wicked step mother. "I trust you've had fun in your amateur sleuthing. Very thorough. But there's one important bit of information you're leaving out.
"Where's my father?" I demanded.
"Safe. For now. But here's how it will go. You're going to come to me. Alone. No police, no FBI, no Professor Anderson. Just you."
"I'm not."
"You are. If you don't, I'll kill him. Right now. While you listen." A pause. "But if you come, I'll release him. You have my word."
"Your word means nothing."
"Perhaps. But it's the only chance your father will have." She gave me an address. "You have one hour. Come alone, or he dies. Oh, and Brooklyn? Don't even think about trying to trace this call. I'm not stupid."
The line went dead.
As I rose, Daniel seized my arm. "You're not seriously considering—"
"I have to. She'll kill him."
"It's a trap! She wants you there so she can do both of you in, make it look like a murder-suicide."
"I know!" Tears streamed down my face. "But what choice do I have? He's my father!"
"Then I'm coming with you."
"She said alone."
"I don't care what she said." His eyes blazed with determination. "I'm not losing you."
My phone buzzed with a text. A photo.
My father, alive but beaten. And from behind him, the muzzle of a gun was jammed into his skull by none other than Marcus Webb.
Unknown: Fifty-nine minutes, Brooklyn. Clock's ticking.