Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Tucker nodded and turned the phone on the counter to face me. I smiled my thanks. As I picked up the handset, it hit me that this is goodbye. Cal would go back into the woods, I’d go back to Seattle and we’d never see each other again. I looked at Cal in panic. He’d helped me but I hadn’t had the chance to help him. I’d be leaving him in pain.
Cal nodded at me.
I dialed 911.
“911, please hold,” said a recorded message. I couldn’t look at Cal again: if I did, I was going to lose it completely. So I looked at the TV on the wall. A news anchor was talking about some hearing the attorney general had been involved in last week.
“911, what is your emergency?” asked the operator.
I opened my mouth...and nothing came out.
“911, what is the nature of your emergency?”
I was staring at the TV. The phone, Tucker’s...everything except the screen had ceased to exist.
“911,” said the operator more urgently, “do you require assistance?”
On the TV, a recording played of the attorney general addressing a senate hearing the week before. He was calling for stricter laws to fight international crime and—
I recognized him. I recognized the thinning black hair and the wide, moon-like face—
I recognized him because I’d seen him at the mansion.
16
Bethany
I CLOSED MY EYES and I could see him in the mansion: every line of his crow’s feet, every fold of his flabby neck. I recognized that patronizing voice: No, sweetie. You’re in the right place.
The attorney general was a member of the club.
And then it got worse. I opened my eyes just as the camera cut to a shot of the senate panel and—
He was there, too. I was sure of it. An overweight guy with old-fashioned, aviator-style glasses: the caption on-screen told me he was a senator from Texas who sat on the foreign intelligence committee. And him, a senator from Oregon who was chair of the federal intelligence oversight panel. The man who oversaw the freakin’ FBI!
The room felt like it was tipping and shifting under my feet. Now I understood why they’d all been so confident and self-assured. The club wasn’t a collection of criminals: Ralavich was the exception, that’s why they were so scared of him. The members were the elite of society: the rich and the very, very powerful. I looked again at the TV, at the men in their suits, and my stomach churned. This thing had been growing right at the heart of our society. These were men everyone trusted, men whose reputations were pristine. But maybe once a year, they’d jet off to their secret little clubhouse in Idaho, far from the TV cameras, where scared young women would be waiting for them….
There’d been others at the mansion, too. Young men, too young to be senators. CEOs? Tech billionaires? There was no telling who else was involved.
I became aware of a voice in my ear. The 911 operator was still asking if I needed help. “Sorry,” I whispered, and hung up the phone.
“Bethany?” said Cal, concerned. But I couldn’t answer him, couldn’t focus on anything. My mind was spinning too fast.
I couldn’t go to the police.
No one would believe me. A secret club, for the political elite? In a luxury mansion I wouldn’t be able to find again? They’d think I was crazy. And if by some miracle I managed to convince someone and they looked into it, there was no way charges would ever be filed. The attorney general was involved, and the man who oversaw the FBI. Between the two of them, they knew everything that was going on in law enforcement. They’d crush any investigation before it even got started. I remembered the guns I’d seen at the mansion. These people weren’t afraid to kill to protect their secret. They’d make sure I was silenced.
Cal’s hands closed on my shoulders. “Bethany?”
This time, I looked up at him but I still couldn’t speak. I can’t go home. They had my employment records. They knew where I lived. They’d kill me, or take me back to Ralavich. Silent tears scalded my eyes and started to spill down my cheeks. In less than twenty-four hours, my life had come apart. I had no money, no job, no place to live. I was being hunted by the most powerful men in the nation and the police couldn’t help me. What the hell am I going to do?
Cal’s hands guided me out of the gas station. Rufus sprang to his feet as we passed him and looked up at me, concerned. But I left them both behind and stumbled across the road. I couldn’t talk, could barely process.
I sank to the ground at the edge of the woods and sat with my arms on my knees and my face pressed against them. The despair rose up inside me in huge, shuddering waves, hot tears streaming down my cheeks and plopping into the dirt. I’ve never felt so utterly alone.