Page 50 of Stolen Princess

“When I can’t see it, you mean? Does he know you’re with me?”

“No.”

“So you don’t trust him.”

I chuckle. “No. I don’t trust him, but before you get all bent out of shape on his part, he doesn’t trust me either. We’re hardly besties or confidants.”

She twists back to me and angles closer as if she’s about to dig into me. “Do you have any of those?”

“No.”

“So how do you feel your life is different from mine? You’re as alone as I am. Maybe more so since I do have my mother, and you have no one. Living in the world doesn’t mean you’re actually living.”

I hold in my smile. “Are you psychoanalyzing me now?”

She gives me a cheeky grin and playfully bats her eyelashes at me. “Absolutely.”

Another text from Lars comes in, and I have to deal with this. I’m too fucking curious about what they’ve found on Marie, if anything. I pull over into a petrol station and park the car in front of the store.

“What are we doing?” she asks, her head swiveling about, taking in our new surroundings.

“Stay here.”

Without waiting for her next question, which I know was coming, I unplug my phone and head inside.

16

FERRIN

Air conditioning hits me along with the chime, and I keep my head down. This was likely stupid. These places all have cameras, and I have no prosthetics on since I removed them after we got the car. I normally wear them all the time I’m out in the world, but for some reason, I didn’t want Genevieve to see me like that.

Why I cared is beyond me, and now that vanity is costing me.

I wander the aisles as I pull up the text.

Lars: We can’t find her. The woman’s a ghost.

Lars: How the fuck are we supposed to find this bitch with old intel?

Me: It hasn’t even been a day of you searching for her, and you’re already giving up? Bullshit.

Lars: It’s a bullshit errand, and you know it. Give us real intel on how to find her. Not where she was living three years ago either.

I can’t reply to him now. It took me months to find her the first time, and I hardly have that sort of time now. That said, I might have a way. It’s something I was planning to do after the necklace job because I didn’t have time prior to that. I knew if I had, I’d follow that and get consumed instead of focusing on the necklace.

But now, I have time. Well, sort of.

Me: I’ll get back to you.

Lars: Not good enough. We need to meet up.

Me: I can’t.

Lars: You can, or we’ll be hunting you and the girl.

You and the girl. Motherfucker, I knew it. My jaw clenches, and I grip the back of my neck. The woman. Her mother or whatever. What’s her plan? Have them kill me and bring her back? Or kill her along with me?

Me: How do you know about her?