Page 133 of Hide And Seek

“I don’t know why you’re so mad.” His head tilted slightly. “I thought you wanted me to let Jasmine live.”

I didn’t answer.

He untied my wrists and ankles with quick, practiced movements, then stood and waited while I dragged myself stiffly upright and climbed out of the closet.

Pins and needles stabbed through my legs almost immediately. I staggered toward the bed and sank down on the edge of it, shoulders drooping with exhaustion.

“Last night you said you’d give me answers,” I said in a low voice. “About all of this. Your plan. Your list.”

“I will,” Rhys said, nodding slowly. “But first, I want some answers from you.”

A frown pulled at my forehead. “About what?”

“Well…” He leaned back against the wall beside the closet door, folding his arms across his chest. “For starters, Alissa Madsen doesn’t exist.”

My stomach flipped.

Rhys’s eyes stayed fixed on me as his mouth curved faintly.

“So let’s start there,” he said, tilting his head again. “Who the hell are you?”

26

My heart feltlike it was going to beat right out of my chest.

“How did you find out?” I asked in a low voice.

Rhys folded his arms across his chest. “That’s not an answer.”

“Just tell me,” I said, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “Was it something I said?”

“No.” He shook his head slightly. “I looked you up after we met. I found your file in Mabry’s office and realized pretty quickly that the driver’s license you used for your application was fake.”

A muscle in my jaw tightened.

“I guess nobody looked too closely because the owner hired you as a favor to an old friend,” he continued. “You basically got waved through.”

“Right,” I muttered.

“It was also a little weird that you didn’t provide bank details for your pay,” he said. “Just a PayPal account. Not unheard of, but still strange enough to stand out.”

I looked away.

“So I started digging,” he went on. “I checked a bunch of public records and background databases, and I eventually realized there’s no such person as Alissa Madsen.” A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “Unless you’re secretly a forty-seven-year-old accountant from Ohio, but I’m pretty sure you’re not.”

“Why did you look me up?” I asked, looking back at him.

“I was curious about you.”

“So your response to curiosity is stalking people through government databases?” I said, brows rising. “You couldn’t just look at my socials like a normal person?”

Rhys smirked again. “You’ve been lying about your identity since the second you got here, baby. Let’s not pretend you have the moral high ground.”

I surged to my feet before I even realized I was moving.

“Iabsolutelyhave the moral high ground here!” I snapped, throwing my hands up. “You’re a fucking serial killer, Rhys!”

“Spree killer, technically,” he said. Then his head tilted. “And you’re changing the subject again. Who are you?”