Page 40 of Mirror Image

And I don’t doubt they’re lying to me about something.

I’m just not sure what that is.

Yet.

Chapter Fourteen

Mary

Five years ago

When the phone rang for the fifth time in an hour, I shoved it under my pillows.

In retrospect, I probably should’ve planned better. But everything happened so fast, I barely had time to think. It wasn’t like I could just hang around after that stunt my parents pulled. Ready or not, leaving right then and there had felt like the only choice. Storming upstairs and slamming my door would’ve made me look like a brat. Driving cross-country made me look like I meant it.

Now, though, as the motel air conditioner rattled and spat out another puff of vaguely damp “cool” air, I wondered if maybe there was a middle ground I’d missed. The place Sam found online was called the Sunset Traveler’s Lodge—though “lodge” was generous. Two double beds, floral bedspreads with cigarette burns, and a faded print of Mount Hood hanging crooked over the TV. The carpet was thin enough to feel the concrete underneath, and the air smelled faintly of Pine-Sol and old smoke.

Still, we were only twenty minutes from the headquarters of the North American Wilderness Academy—close enough that we could see the mountains rising in the distance when we pulled into the parking lot earlier that afternoon. Sam had pressed her forehead to the car window and just breathed, like she was already home.

By the time we crossed the Florida state line, my parents had put the deep freeze on my credit card. I half expected them to report my car stolen, too . . . but that hadn’t happened as of yet. And, luckily, they had no access to my checking and savings accounts. I didn’t have enough cash to sustain us indefinitely, but there was enough to keep a roof over our heads for a while if we stayed in more modest accommodations.

For me, this room was a stopgap. For her, it might as well have been freedom.

“You could just turn it off, you know. Or better yet, get a burner,” Sam suggested casually, like this was totally normal advice.

“A burner?” I echoed with a disbelieving laugh. “What am I? A spy? Is the CIA tracing my movements via satellite too?”

Her expression barely shifted. She shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. Your folks certainly have the connections.”

“Sam, I think you’ve been watching too many movies,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“You sure?” she countered, tone light but with a shadowy edge underneath. “You really don’t think there’s some kind of tracking app on your phone? That Terry and Doug aren’t watching some blinking, green dot labeled ‘Mary’ on a map right now?”

“You think I’d let them anywhere near my unlocked phone?” I shot back.

She tilted her head, giving me that streetwise, seen-too-much look of hers. “Please. You telling me you bought that phone yourself?”

An image of the silver-wrapped iPhone box under the Christmas tree last year popped into my head. “Well, no, it was a gift. But I set it up from scratch.”

“I don’t know,” she drawled.

Living in close quarters with someone for an extended length of time wasn’t easy, and a few of Sam’s quirks were starting to get on my nerves—like her constant skepticism.

“What?” I huffed, unable to hide my irritation. “What are you getting at? Just freaking say it already!”

Her mouth curled at my choice of words. “You can’t even curse when they’re not here, can you?”

I threw up my hands. “Fine. You want cursing? Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuckity fuck. There. You happy?”

Something in her expression changed, and she tilted her head to one side, as if seeing me for the first time. “Why, Mary Langston,” she drawled, “are you a . . . virgin?”

I cringed, winced, and blushed simultaneously, inadvertently revealing the truth—though I did my best to deny it anyway.

“None of your business,” I gritted out.

She sat up on all fours, crawling to the side of the bed so she could sit with her feet on the floor, directly across from me. I had yet to master as permanently impassive an expression as my sister had, and every emotion played out across my face like a movie screen. Sam knew that all too well, and right now she wanted a front-row seat for the show.

“You are!” she exclaimed. “Oh, wow! You really are ‘the Virgin Mary’! That’s . . . That’s so—”