Page 50 of Kill Sleep Repeat
“Dad was right about what?”
“That you’d say he should be saving his money. That I should want to pitch in for free.”
My eyes close. I can’t bring myself to open them. “Pitch in how?”
“With the lists.”
“What lists?”
“The lists of girls on social media.”
“Soph—I need you to spell it out for me. What are you doing with lists on social?”
“I make friends with the girls. Then Dad goes after their family for business.”
“Business? What business?”
She looks at me like I’ve grown three heads. “For his architecture stuff. It’s all about seven degrees of separation, you know. Marketing…life…”
“Oh, Sophie.” I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth. Her father has been paying her blood money to do really bad things.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Charlotte
When we land in Cabo, a local man, who is not old, but not young, offers to show us around. He offers to carry our bags, recommend restaurants, and the best sightseeing tours. “I can take you to the whales,” he says in a strident voice.
Michael says all he wants is to get to the hotel. I’m really glad I didn’t rush this. “Maybe,” I suggest, eyeing the girls. “Whale watching could be fun.”
The man’s eyes shine. “Where is your hotel? I can take you.”
“We have a car lined up,” Michael tells him.
The man, weathered by the sun, studies him, a serious expression on his face.
It’s the first time I feel like I can truly breathe in weeks. Inhaling deeply, the man smells like salt, fish, and freedom. I feel a sense of calm rush over me. Luckily, convincing Michael to take a family trip over spring break turned out to be easier than I’d expected. He agreed that we could use some time away as a family. Some time to allow the dust to settle a bit.
“You should be careful,” he says to Michael as he looks at me. “The cartels. Hard to know who to trust.”
With a nod and a clipped tone, Michael assures the man we’ll be fine.
As we step out into the day, it’s sunny and beautiful, and the girls seem happy. I do not let them out of my sight. I know how easy it is to disappear here.
The sun and the sand and the carefree feeling of having no particular place you need to be makes me wish we’d taken more trips like this. Before. Back when things were different, back when I hadn’t known the truth. I’ve been thinking about that a lot as I’ve recovered—this is one of the things about being out of commission, the endless, uninterrupted hours in which to think. What a gift it is, to be naive. To live your life believing it is one way, absent of the truth.
Last week Michael and I were discussing a project he is working on and he said to me, “If you knew something was going to end badly, but that it was going to be really beautiful along the way…would you still do it?”
I cocked my brow. “How beautiful are we talking?”
“One of the most beautiful experiences in your life kind of beautiful.”
The answer came easily. “Then, yes,” I said. “Yes, I would.”
If I’d rushed this trip, I never would have been able to gather the information I needed. For weeks, I have worked hard at pretending all is normal. Or as close to normal as normal can get, considering. Thinking of Henry, I kept the six Ps in mind: Prior planning prevents piss poor performance. That notion, he always said, is at the forefront of every good job.
Speaking of jobs, there was so much I wanted to find out before I could get rid of the one person who held all of the answers. The lists of accounts, being one. It turns out, Michael was smart enough to open payable-on-death accounts with me listed as the beneficiary. With the exception of an accountant, he simply forgot to mention they existed.
But there were other things too. Things more important than money. The list of names. Buyers and sellers, traders and abductors. A treasure trove of data. Very bad people who deserve to pay. Then there are the missing girls, and the places where they might be found. That is, if they’re still alive.