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  Don’t be offended. Of course they think you’ll be a distraction on tour. In their minds I’ve worked so hard to get to the top of the food chain in juniors tennis and I could do some real damage this summer.

  I not only understood exactly what he was silently saying, but it was also more textured than hearing him speak aloud. I felt closer to him. I could better feel him and his emotion and intent in the words he was saying. It scared me how quickly I preferred it.

  “You deserve a fresh start, Julia. I hope this doesn’t follow you to California,” Kathleen said.

  There it was. The worry that I would hold John back if I went to California too.

  I didn’t breathe for a moment, and John grabbed my hand.

  It’s not you. They just don’t like your situation. Or me going to college with a girlfriend. They want me to make the team when I try out at Stanford. If I somehow get cut, I lose my scholarship next year. They’re not stupid, they know where I really go at night. They probably even know about the practices I’ve skipped.

  What I wished I could say to Kathleen was that I knew my situation was not normal. I wasn’t normal. But I was trying to be. I was doing everything I could to be.

  “It won’t always be like this,” I said, knowing I couldn’t guarantee it.

  It was bold, but I looked Kathleen in the eye and made a firm resolution I meant to keep whether or not she believed there was anything to an eighteen-year-old’s word. “I won’t interfere with John’s plans.”

  “I’ll walk you to the car,” John said, likely uncomfortable at the shift to talking about him in front of him.

  “No, stay inside,” I said. “We’re going to have to be more careful again.”

  “I don’t want to go backward,” John said.

  “Me neither. But it’s out of our control. For now. I just want things to be normal. If we lay low, we’ll get there faster. Now, I really better go. You all need your sleep.”

  John put a hand on my shoulder.

  How to kiss someone good-bye in front of their parents and brother and still make it count?

  I leaned in and made sure to take in every sensation when his lips touched mine, my hand squeezing his bicep to steady myself. To everyone else, it would have appeared as a quick peck on the lips.

  John pulled back. We’re together. You’re going on tour with me. That’s not going to change.

  “It was nice to meet you,” his grandmother said, interrupting our silent exchange.

  She then dropped her gold-plated cigarette case, but before John could reach down and grab it for her, she beat him to it and it was back in her hand.

  My pulse quickened, and I worked to hide the shock that I knew had passed over my face.

  It was so subtle that no one else but me or a Puri would have caught it. The gold case had lifted up a quarter of an inch to meet her hand.

  Jade didn’t even seem aware of what she had just done. She touched my back in a good-bye gesture and exited the room.

  John asked me, “What?”

  I automatically shook my head that nothing was wrong.

  “I’ll see you in Dallas?” he said. “If I get to the finals.”

  “You’ll get to the finals,” his mom called out. “Your grandmother wants to see it.”

  I gave John an automatic smile and evaded his question. “Sleep well.”

  He repeated, “You’re coming to Dallas.”

  I looked at him, at his family, framed for one last second the way I’d always pictured them before it all splintered apart in my mind.

  “Of course. Good night.”

  When I arrived at my apartment, I bolted to the kitchen, the den, the living room. Every single room where I’d hid something that I’d bent, broken, or pierced.

  I snatched up pieces, running back and forth to the trash. There was so much more than I remembered, I finally yanked the white trash bag out of the can and carried it with me all around the apartment, searching wildly in the backs of drawers, behind the few books I had, in the dirt of the potted banana tree.

  The evidence was appalling. What had been a way to soothe myself, what I’d considered just a light application now and then, was a complete lie. This had been a daily habit.

  A white china plate that I’d neatly serrated in three places balanced in my hand. I tipped the jagged pieces into the trash and one shard sliced my palm. I hauled the trash bag behind me like a demented Santa Claus and something sharp poked through the bag and grazed my bare leg.

  I’d told myself I would slowly fill the trash with them over time in case anyone was going through my garbage, spying on me. But if I was honest, these remnants were my trophies. I double-bagged the trash and left it in the kitchen.

  I went to the bathroom and started the shower, then looked back to my bedroom. Something about the way the room looked made me pause. I stared at the bed and the lamplight glowing against the white walls. John had been standing in this same spot the other day when he’d studied the room as if something was bothering him.

  I’ve seen this room before.

  Last year, while we’d sat in English class, way before I’d moved in, before we’d ever gotten together, John would think about us lying on a white bed, taking my clothes off piece by piece.

  It was this exact bed without a headboard, in this exact room.

  In his thoughts, light poured through the windows just like it had the other day. I’d thought it was John’s private fantasy. Now I knew he’d been seeing the future.

  Now that Angus had introduced the idea, I saw the signs everywhere. And what about that stuff that Jade could do or seemed to know?

  I sank onto the cold hardwood floor, the sound of the shower water running in the background. I wiped at the trickle of blood coming from my calf, then squeezed my eyes closed.

  I’d done this to John. I knew it. Maybe there’d been something there all along, because of his background. But I’d pushed him over the edge.

  Ever since my family had left, Novak’s was the one voice I’d tried most to repress. But now his voice echoed in my ears, One of us would hear this person’s thoughts and know he had the potential to become one of us completely. He was key to my direct line. He was meant for Liv.

  I’d never believed that, not in all these months. But recent events had me reconsidering. Like a layer existed just beneath the one where I was living, I could run my fingers over the floor and feel the textures of the carpet in Novak’s office, hear his words, and vividly experience the chill of fear. My mind was back in my family home, reliving my final conversation with my father. I had been petrified, harboring the knowledge that I knew the person who Novak wanted.

  I opened my eyes to break the reverie. For the first time since entering the apartment, I noticed the red message light on the house phone provided by the hotel. Only one party ever used this number.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling of something pulling me down from this sunny world into a dark place waiting just beneath.

  AUGUST, two months later

  JOHN

  I don’t know when I first felt you reading my mind. Or when I was first able to stop you. I guess I took pride in shutting you out. But that night at my house when you met my grandmother, I didn’t plan it out ahead of time. I just knew I could communicate with you in a new way and when I did it, my head was so clear.

  It was obvious you wanted me to stop speaking to you silently. So right then, I decided to let you ignore my unexpected actions if you wanted. I wasn’t going to bring it up again.

  It was strange to suddenly feel like I couldn’t be myself with you…

  JUNE

  Chapter Six

  I sat through the usual onslaught of questions that I’d answered a thousand times at the FBI’s nondescript beige building in a North Austin office park.

  Have you heard from your father
?

  When did you find out your father was stealing money?

  Where is the water they’ve stolen?

  My head heard the words, but my mind was somewhere else. With John. Terror hit me right in the heart whenever I thought about him and what I was going to do. Which I’d been doing nonstop, even while listening to that unexpected message from Agent Kelly.

  Though the FBI was a minor threat, it was still one that needed to be managed. The timing of Agent Kelly’s call was the only thing that worried me, but I reminded myself that the FBI would have surrounded us had they seen Angus and that this interrogation I was now enduring was most likely a routine annoyance.

  Agent Kelly was clean-cut with black hair and amber eyes—Boy Scout-attractive, clearly in great shape beneath his conservative work attire. He was so serious I couldn’t imagine he had a personality when he wasn’t at work. I’d done my research like Donna: Agent Kelly was thirty-seven and from Salt Lake City. He’d started his career with the FBI in Denver.

  I’d thought I would make it out of Austin without needing to give another interview. I’d already knocked down so many sessions with the police and the FBI, one by one. Last winter, I’d been amazed each time that I made it through without giving something important up.

  Now the FBI dropped its bomb.

  After all of these months, Kendra Wilson’s body had been found. I should have been worried about lying again to Agent Kelly, but I was relieved the meeting had nothing to do with Angus.

  “We have an approximate timeline of when she went missing and when she passed away. Did you see Miss Wilson any time in November or December of last year?”

  I began to speak, and my lawyer put a hand on my upper arm. Her name was Kathryn Caspar and she’d been right at my side, answering my questions, guiding me through the countless interviews, and countering the FBI at every turn since last December. She never wavered in her assertion: I was a young girl from what they could only approximate to a cult, and I had no knowledge of the inner workings of the operation or where my family members were hiding. I’d escaped and deserved a chance to proceed with my new life.

  She and Donna had worked hard to prove the veracity of my story so my assets weren’t seized. Donna sat on my other side, present so she could answer any financial inquiries.

  Kathryn scrawled on a piece of white paper. September?

  I nodded, lying, protecting my family. My father hadn’t wanted Kendra to die. That had been an accident. His crime was concealing her death and disposing of Kendra’s body after an accident on our property.

  The real crime had been when Novak had hired her as his assistant. I’d heard his regret—not that she’d died but that he’d been wrong. He’d thought he’d finally proved that there were people like us out in the world who could withstand close, prolonged contact with us. Kendra had lasted longer than the other assistants he’d auditioned to take into hiding. But ultimately her mental health deteriorated, just like theirs.

  “As she’s informed you over and over again, the last time my client saw Kendra Wilson was in September when Miss Jaynes went to visit her father at his downtown office.”

  Though it had been a police investigation, Agent Kelly still suspected it was me who gave Kendra’s parents the anonymous tip in March, informing them that their daughter had passed away. The search had been renewed because of that tip. Then as months went by, the investigation lagged with only her poor parents trying to keep Kendra’s name in the news.

  Agent Kelly tried one more time to speak to me directly. “Before I ask the next question, I want to remind you that lying puts you in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, which makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully make any false statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of the judicial branch of the United States.”

  I nodded.

  “So, Miss Jaynes, the body was discovered in this area, right near the Pennybacker Bridge. Have you been here before?” He held out a stack of photos, and Kathryn took them. We quickly looked together.

  I shook my head, concealing my surprise that Kendra had been buried in the Lost Kids’ old stomping ground.

  “So that’s a no? You’ve never been here before?”

  “Correct,” I said. I didn’t feel bad about lying. They had found her. That was the important thing.

  “There was an unidentifiable marking on the body, so now the FBI has a hate crime investigation as well as the financial crimes investigation.” Agent Kelly seemed angry, as if he were about to start shaking his head at the depths of my family’s depravity.

  Now the presence of Linda Martinez, the young woman next to Agent Kelly who had been introduced as being from FBI headquarters in DC, specializing in hate crimes, made sense.

  Agent Martinez pushed a picture in front of me. It was a close-up, so I couldn’t tell which part of Kendra’s body the marking was on. It was an intricate fractal pattern that looked like some kind of symbol or family crest. I’d never seen it before, but I had no doubt someone from my family had etched it. Perhaps it was a Puri marking I wasn’t aware of. There was so much I didn’t know about our history, all of which I’d been told I’d learn one day, but that would never happen now.

  I shook my head. “I’ve never seen this before.”

  “She was badly interred. And we had those rains this winter.” Agent Kelly threw that out and watched me. I kept my face blank even though inside I was appalled that whoever it was from my group who’d covered this up hadn’t shown the courtesy of burying her correctly. Agent Kelly looked at me with slight disgust, like he knew I was lying and he wanted to prove it. I couldn’t mess up in front of him the way I had with Donna the other day when I’d thoughtlessly opened the door with my mind. Now that Agent Kelly had surprised me, I was on edge knowing Angus was in the vicinity.

  “We’re done here, right?” Kathryn said.

  “One last thing.” Agent Kelly unfurled the map of the world in front of me once again. I’d seen it what felt like a hundred times at this point. Kathryn sighed along with me.

  “Really, guys?” Kathryn said, leaning back and crossing her arms over her blue silk blouse.

  “Just see if you can remember anything new. Anywhere else you went on vacation or on a trip with your family,” Agent Kelly said.

  I looked up at him. Rafa, as I’d heard his fellow agents call him. Rafael Kelly. There was something different about him today. Because of the recent discovery, he was reenergized about my case after months of coming up short.

  I focused on the map in front of me, seeing all the work I’d done on it. Every place I’d ever been to all over the world, always at an exclusive resort or a private island, was marked by a red dot. I hadn’t held back when they’d asked. My family would never settle somewhere we’d been before. And I knew they would never let themselves get caught.

  Agent Kelly spoke. “They have to be in the United States if they’re tapping into the aquifer.”

  My family’s water assets could have rivaled Nestle’s with how much fresh water they had ended up controlling.

  “The aquifer spans all this,” he pointed to a gigantic area including parts of Colorado and Texas. “We’re also tracking suspect building supplies being shipped piecemeal to the Yukon.”

  I almost said, “What about New Zealand?” Donna had told me it was an open secret that some American billionaires were making doomsday preparations in case they needed to flee a natural disaster, nuclear threat, or French Revolution–style class war. New Zealand was the choice destination for real estate purchase because it was a First World country, self-sustaining, and far, far away from the rest of the world.

  Instead I said, “I think I’ve remembered everything,” though I continued to look at the map. Where were they? Where was my sister right now, right this second? I had a sudden longing for her. It was hard to believe they were actually somewhere y
ou could see on this map. In my mind, they lived in a whole other dimension now.

  “What about your biological mother?” Agent Kelly asked. “Have you been in contact?”

  You could have heard a pin drop. All eyes trained on me.

  “No.”

  “Can you please speak up?”

  “No,” I enunciated and shook my head for emphasis.

  “Do you think your father will contact her?”

  “No.” I gave Kathryn a look, prompting her.

  “I think we’re finished here,” she said, flattening her hands on the conference table. In silent agreement, Agent Kelly reached across the table and gathered the photos, taking his time. Kathryn stood, and Donna and I rose as well. Agent Kelly and his partner escorted us out of the conference room. As we walked the long hall to the exit, I actually heard Kathryn attempt some chitchat with Agent Kelly. Donna, not to be outdone, chimed in as well. I’d observed that Rafael Kelly was extremely shy when not in his official role.

  After, at the exit, Kathryn gave a cursory wave. “I’m off. Julia, I’ll call you if anything more comes up, but I think we’re good.”

  “Thank you,” I said and expectantly turned to Donna. I waited for the very temporary but welcome escape of her usual sunny chatter, but today I sensed some impatience in how she was standing—one heel lifting up and down, her body tensed.

  I didn’t linger, reminded that I was a paying client and not her friend.

  AUGUST, two months later

  JOHN

  When I arrived in Dallas and we got together again, I could tell something was different. You were different. You seemed sad, and I wondered if it was because of me. You’re hard to understand.

  In the past, you’ve made self-deprecating comments about how you’re so different from your perfect family, less than them somehow. I don’t think you see yourself. You are every bit as striking and self-contained and intimidating in your own way.