Dragging her cell from her hip pocket, she held her breath and took the plunge. She was not going to be afraid to look at her own social media pages. Whatever ugly things people were saying, it was all lies.

  First in her news feed was a post by Alice.

  The truth is out. Sarah did it. She killed poor Brendal. But it was Tori who told her to do it. #Brighton #deadgirl #meangirls #murder #killerteens #wtf

  The bottom fell from Tori’s stomach as if she’d just gone around the Ferris wheel after having way too much cotton candy.

  Why would Alice say something like that?

  Post after post from classmates echoed the same news. The killer teens hashtag was trending.

  Tori clapped a hand over her mouth. How was this possible? None of it was true. Tori had never told Sarah to hurt Brendal. Sarah would never have pushed anyone, not even someone as mean as Brendal.

  Sick, Tori tossed her phone on the bed. What about Alice? She was the one who had told Tori that Sarah thought she’d pushed Brendal. The day before that, Alice had been huddled and whispering with Sarah. Tori had known Sarah forever. She wouldn’t come up with such a deceitful plan.

  It had to be Alice. All that religious or voodoo crap she did was just further proof that she was evil.

  Way more evil than Brendal ever was.

  Tori glanced at her phone. But everyone thought she and Sarah were the evil ones.

  How would she ever make them see otherwise? Her mom swore she was going to help, but Tori wasn’t sure she could fix this no matter how much she wanted to.

  Maybe Sarah had been the smart one when she’d tried to free herself from all this insanity.

  Why should Tori hang around? She no longer had any friends. She had gotten completely ugly the past few months. Too skinny. No boobs. Pimple face. She’d failed a big test. Now she couldn’t even go to school.

  Her life was over anyway.

  The tears rushed from her eyes. The sobs rose and tore out of her.

  “Tori? Sweetie, you okay?” Diana appeared at the door.

  Tori shook her head. “No. I’m not okay. And I don’t know what to do.”

  Diana hurried to the bed and sat down beside her. She pulled Tori into her arms. “You tell me whatever you’re thinking, precious girl. Don’t hold anything back.”

  The words spewed out of Tori on violent sobs. She wasn’t sure they would ever stop.

  Not until she was empty.

  32

  1:50 p.m.

  Brighton Academy

  Seventh Avenue

  Birmingham

  For such an elite private school, the security was surprisingly lax. The guard had waved Sadie through the maintenance entrance as if they were old friends. It helped that she wore coveralls with the Southern Comfort Heating and Air logo. Drove one of their trucks too. Sadie had all sorts of friends who owed her favors.

  She supposed the truck and getup or maybe her big smile kept the guard from checking with the office to see if anyone had called for HVAC maintenance. Complacency. Never a good thing.

  She’d gone from floor to floor, room to room, checking thermostats until she’d found Alice Cortez in an art room. Sadie took her time removing the thermostat from the wall and pretending to examine the device.

  As closely as possible she watched Alice interact with the other students. Observed her mannerisms and listened to her speech in hopes of noting something familiar. Her voice sounded vaguely recognizable, but it had been more than four years since she’d been in the same room with the child of Eduardo Osorio.

  Her dark eyes . . . the shape of her nose and chin were Eddie. No question. But he wasn’t the only Hispanic man with big brown eyes and full lips to pass along to his offspring. If this Alice was Isabella, she was still as beautiful as she had been as a much smaller child.

  Just then Alice whirled around and said something to the girl behind her. That move, the little ballerina-like twirl was so familiar.

  Dark eyes bumped hers, and Sadie looked away. She definitely did not want to get caught staring at one of these kids.

  She should get the hell out of here. She’d seen enough.

  As quickly as possible, with her fingers suddenly fumbling, she mounted the thermostat back on the wall and hit “Reset.”

  “What’s your name?”

  Sadie froze.

  The other kids were still chattering and laughing, but not Alice. Alice stood right next to her. Sadie had no idea where the teacher had gone. What kind of teacher left a stranger in the room with her class?

  Knowing she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard the girl, Sadie kept her focus on the device and said, “Mel. What’s yours?”

  “Alice.”

  The girl stared at her as if expecting some response.

  “I like your eyes.”

  The words radiated through Sadie, through time . . . she had heard those words from this girl before.

  “They’re so gray, they’re almost blue. Like a stormy sea. I love the sea. Do you?”

  “Sure.” Sadie grabbed her tool bag and backed away. “Have a nice day, kid.”

  She was almost to the door when a hand tugged at her sleeve. Sadie froze again, her hand wrapped around the doorknob. She’d almost gotten away.

  “Do I know you?” Alice asked.

  “Doubtful.” Sadie opened the door and walked out.

  If the girl followed her into the corridor, she was going to run.

  Thankfully she did not.

  Sadie walked as quickly as possible toward the stairs. She didn’t want to break into a run, but she was damned tempted. Sweat had broken out on her skin. Dread clawed at her throat. Her heart thumped a frantic drumbeat.

  She hadn’t gone into all-out panic mode in more than a year. She was damned well headed there now.

  The girl had recognized her on some level.

  Sadie gritted her teeth and slid into the borrowed truck. She spotted the security guard headed across the parking lot as she rammed into drive and burst out of the parking slot. Rather than keep going, she braked, took a breath, and powered the window down. Stay calm. Do this right.

  “System checked out fine. There was one thermostat offline, but it’s all good now.”

  The guard narrowed his gaze, then nodded. “Thanks for the update.”

  She powered her window up and rolled away. He wouldn’t be so thankful when he reported to the office and no one could recall a work order for the HVAC system.

  Still struggling to get the panic under control, Sadie drove the ten minutes required to reach the building where her friend and his team were installing a new system. She shed the coveralls, tossed them into the seat, and left the truck. She waved a thanks to him and climbed into her Saab and drove away.

  She needed to know for sure who this girl was.

  More than that she needed a drink.

  But she wasn’t going there. Sober was necessary right now. She’d had that one lapse the other night, and she wasn’t about to allow it to happen again.

  Calm down. Slow, deep breaths. Keep it rational. Think clearly, logically.

  Could Alice Cortez be Isabella Osorio? The age was right. The features.

  Had the old man sent her here for protection of some sort? There was growing unrest in the region over which he reigned. The old man’s time on this earth was limited. Others were champing at the bit to take over as the leader of the largest cartel in Mexico, with a reach that extended all the way to Canada. For that to happen, any remaining heirs would have to be eliminated.

  Images of the child in the mask—the one that had haunted her for the past four-plus years—expanded in Sadie’s head.

  Take my hand and you’ll be invisible.

  Sadie blinked. Turned up the radio to block the voice.

  Can’t be her. Osorio wouldn’t send her here . . . not this close to Sadie. Not after what she’d done. The idea that he might not know Sadie was in Birmingham was ludicrous. He would know. He hadn’t successfully grown the largest drug cartel in Mexico because he was stupid or shortsighted.

  All this time she had never stopped looking over her shoulder, but none of his people ever showed up on her tail or at her door. She’d expected him to. At times had even hoped he would. Then it would be over.

  But no one had come to finish her off.

  He wouldn’t send his granddaughter here. No way. There had to be another explanation.

  A flash of memory slammed into her brain. A voice. His voice whispered in Sadie’s ear . . . warning that she would never be free of him.

  She would always belong to him because of what she took from him.

  “No.” She shook her head, slapped the heel of her hand against the steering wheel. Carlos Osorio had never come after her. He didn’t care about her. He’d made sure she wouldn’t remember anything important. This was just another fragment of memory that likely was nothing more than a hallucination.

  She had invaded his compound. Stolen his son’s heart and then taken his life. Yeah, she had taken something from him all right, but she’d lost plenty as well.

  Was that why he had allowed her to live? He wanted her to suffer with those particular demons for the rest of her days?

  Bastard.

  Watch for the sign.

  The air stalled in Sadie’s lungs as the voice rang out in her head, louder than the heavy metal band on the radio blaring in her ears.

  There will be a sign when the time comes.

  Was the girl . . . a sign?

  Could the old bastard finally be coming for Sadie? After all this time?

  She spotted the stopped truck a split second before she would have barreled into it. She cut right. Hard. Her Saab bounced off the shoulder of the road and into the ditch.

  Her head banged into the driver’s window before the vehicle came to a jarring stop against a culvert. The airbag blew up in her face.

  When she could move, Sadie smacked the deflated bag from her body. She coughed. Her chest would be sore as hell tomorrow. Rubbing at the side of her bruised head, she stared out the shattered windshield at her damaged front end.

  “Idiot.”

  She should have stopped somewhere after returning the truck and walked off the damn panic attack. She’d done it hundreds of times before. What had she been thinking?

  “Damn it!”

  She dug out her cell and called a wrecker. With one en route, she climbed from behind the wheel and propped against the wounded vehicle.

  An Uber home would be the quickest way to get out of here. She could get another car to use until hers was fixed.

  Right now, she really needed that damned drink.

  Not true. What she needed was to know more about Alice Cortez and her family. She considered calling Falco, but Devlin would be the best source. And Devlin was far more desperate at the moment than Falco.

  Sadie tapped the name in her contact list. Devlin answered on the second ring.

  “Can you give me a ride?”

  Sadie’s Loft

  Sixth Avenue, Twenty-Seventh Street

  Birmingham, 2:40 p.m.

  Sadie pointed to a grainy photo she had printed from the internet. “This is the image a sketch artist did right after I came back. That’s what I could recall of the girl, Isabella.”

  Devlin stared at the wall of notes Sadie had made. Pieces of memories. Fragments of time. “She could be Alice,” Devlin said. “No question.”

  “The voice is right.” Sadie shrugged. “More mature, but right.”

  Devlin shook her head. “I can’t believe you got into Brighton Academy so easily. Geez. What am I paying for?”

  “Good question,” Sadie concurred. “I was able to watch her for a few minutes—the girl, I mean. She did this little twirl around like a ballerina. I saw Isabella do it a hundred times.”

  “Most girls want to be a ballerina at one time or another in their lives,” Devlin countered.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Sadie didn’t have kids. She knew nothing of what little girls did or wanted.

  “Walk me through what you actually remember,” Devlin said.

  Sadie grabbed her mug of coffee from the table and stalked toward the sofa. “I was assigned to the task force in July. By September I was in tight with the son, Eduardo—Eddie to his friends. By October I was living at the compound. By Christmas we were engaged.”

  The other part Sadie had long ago decided she wouldn’t talk about. To anyone. Her father knew because the doctors had told him there were indications Sadie had given birth a few months prior. She’d never told anyone else.

  “Were you able to pass along usable intelligence while you were undercover?”

  Sadie downed a hefty swallow of coffee. “I did. Not as much as I would have liked but more than anyone else had ever managed before. I was the first undercover to get inside the compound. It took getting really close to the family. Digging in deep.”

  “I imagine it was difficult to play the part so completely.”

  “I don’t know.” Sadie stared at her half-empty cup. “Part of me became my cover. It’s the only way to make it real. You pull on that skin and become the person you’re pretending to be. After a while, it feels . . . right, and you do what you have to do.”

  “What happened before you vanished?”

  “I overheard a conversation. Passed along the intel, and that was the end of my cover.”

  “Someone saw you or set you up?”

  “The last bit of intelligence I passed along was too close. No one knew except Eddie, his father, and the woman on the phone. They knew it had to be me. There was no one else in the house that day.”

  “What about the woman? Did you recognize her?”

  “I only heard her voice on the conference call. For a moment. A dozen words, maybe. She never came to the compound.” A snippet of memory about someone important visiting at the party on October 31 flashed in her brain. Was that why she’d ended up drugged that night, so she wouldn’t see the visitor? Sadie shook off the memory. “She’s the big mystery that remains even after digging in so deep and all that hard work.”

  “And sacrifice.”

  Sadie nodded.

  “Where did they keep you?”

  “A containment facility away from the compound, I think. But I can’t be certain.”

  “You were tortured and drugged all that time. Why keep you so long and then let you go?”

  A baby crying echoed in her brain. It’s dead. It’s dead.

  Sadie blinked at the painful reverberation. “They wanted to make sure I forgot anything I ever knew, I guess. They did this whole brainwashing thing.”

  Devlin considered this a moment. “Why didn’t they just kill you?” She picked up her mug but didn’t bring it to her lips. “Sounds like they were waiting for something. Maybe some sort of deal with the DEA or BPD.”

  “There was no deal.” Sadie shook her head. “No one knew if I was even still alive.”

  “Maybe you just weren’t told about it. Your father could have—”

  “He had nothing to do with it,” she snapped, cutting Devlin off.

  The other woman held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. Got it.”

  Those emotions she didn’t like to feel roiled inside Sadie. She should have known Devlin wouldn’t stop digging. Damn it. “They kept me alive because I was pregnant with an Osorio heir. A boy. Okay?”

  Devlin looked as stunned as Sadie felt at having told her. She’d never told anyone that part. Not even Dr. Holden—at least as far as she knew. If she had, he’d never mentioned as much. He would have told her, wouldn’t he? Wasn’t he supposed to share everything that came out during her regression sessions?

  Sadie forced away thoughts of Holden. Didn’t matter. The kid had died at birth. What would have been the point of telling anyone? The omitted detail might have kept her story from being considered suspicious and being dissected repeatedly by the BPD and the DEA when she first reappeared. But she couldn’t be sure of anything . . . couldn’t bear talking about it then or now.

  Why the hell had she just told Devlin?

  Weak. Rattled. Losing her fucking mind. Take your pick.

  “You were pregnant. Oh my God. What happened to the baby?”

  “It died just before or during birth. I can’t be sure. I only know it . . . he was dead. I saw him. Touched him.” The foggy memory of cold flesh swam in her head. “I guess I fell over the edge completely then, because I went batshit crazy.”

  Devlin waited for her to go on. Sadie had gone this far; she might as well tell her the rest. Maybe she was at that batshit crazy place again . . . just a little less violent.

  “I don’t remember more than a voice here or there after that. My next real memory is of waking up under that overpass on Eighteenth.”

  Devlin absorbed this statement for a bit, then said, “I’m stunned you were able to escape. Why didn’t the old man ever send anyone after you?”

  “How the hell should I know?” She tossed back the last of the coffee. How many times had she asked herself that same question? She. Did. Not. Know. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait.” Devlin stared at her as if trying to see inside Sadie’s head. “Why would Carlos Osorio send his granddaughter to Birmingham under a fake identity? Particularly considering this is where you live.”

  “That’s the million-dollar question, Devlin. Who the hell knows?” Speaking of a million dollars, she thought of the reward the Walshes had offered and wondered what Naomi thought about it. Was that the family’s estimated value of their son’s life?

  Sadie felt sick. Devlin asked questions, raised possibilities she didn’t want to think about.

  “There has to be a reason,” Devlin countered, pulling Sadie back to the conversation. “Something so important that Osorio would be willing to take the risk.”

  Since Devlin appeared determined not to let it go, Sadie took a breath and forced herself to mull over the concept before tossing out a possible scenario. “Isabella was kept a secret. She never left the compound. It’s possible if there has been some sort of trouble in the area, they’ve sent her away to protect her. Birmingham has become a major stronghold for Osorio. He may feel she’s safer here despite my presence. I guess it depends on how bad the trouble is and what his assets here are. Besides, I’m not supposed to remember anything, right? Frankly, what little I do makes basically no sense.”