I scrambled for the door and took off down the hall.

25.

Back in my room, I tore off the skirt, pulled on jeans and a jacket, and wrapped the hanging around my neck. There had to be a way out of the compound. I was not going to just let Hawkins turn me over to the feds.

He was yelling at someone on the phone, loud enough that I heard him in his office as I crept down the hall, hugging my boots to my chest. The double doors were silent as I let myself out.

Hawkins' car collection ringed the subterranean garage, millions of dollars' worth of gleaming performance vehicles in the first row and more lowly luxury SUVs parked behind them along the wall.

I circled the room, looking for unlocked cars, and checking to see if any had keys in them. I knew keys would be a long shot, but I thought that I'd at least find an opener for the gate clipped to a visor. No. Nothing.

I darted up the outside stairs to the parking circle and tugged on the boots, then doubled over and sprinted through the brush for the gate. My ankle was wrapped tight, but it still hurt like h.e.l.l.

Cameras lined the security wall around the compound, so I prayed no one was looking at them right now. I made it to the wall and crept along, hoping I'd stay out of the cameras' reach. Finally I got to the gate. It was solid steel, the kind that rolled back on a track. I stuck my hand through the two-inch gap between the gate and the wall and felt freedom right outside.

I braced myself, and pushed with both hands, trying to force the gate back, but it wouldn't give. I tried twice more, throwing my whole weight against it. Nothing. I was trying to push a locomotive.

The steel was smooth. Nothing I could step on to pull myself up. I scanned the brush nearby looking for anything that might help.

It wasn't a minute later that I heard someone whistling behind me. My legs started to shake, and I laid my head on the gate as the notes of the Seminoles' war chant came closer.

The song petered out, and I turned around. "That gate's not going anywhere," Deeps said.

"Yeah, I figured that out."

"Come on back to the house, Hummingbird," he said gently. "You've got some time before the federal marshals arrive."

"I don't want to be inside right now."

"We'll hang out on the patio. Play some cards. Wait for the sunset."

I let Deeps take my arm and we started slowly back to the house. I clenched my hands, trying to control the shaking that was taking me over.

"Is there anything you'd like?" Deeps said. "Anything I can get you?"

The feds were going to kill me. I wouldn't make it out of L.A. County alive. Not unless I could get Deeps to help me. I stopped walking and turned to him. "You could let me go."

Deeps groaned.

"Please. Open the gate just enough so I can squeeze through. Give me a ten-minute head start before you tell Hawkins you can't find me."

"Let's not do this, Avie."

"Please. I promise I'll disappear."

"I can't, so stop asking."

"I'm sorry. I don't want to get you in trouble, but this is my life we're talking about."

A car flew by on the other side of the wall, and my eyes followed the beautiful sound.

"You got someone you want to talk to?" Deeps said quietly. "Maybe say good-bye?"

Yates. But Hawkins would die before he'd allow that.

"Can I see my dad?"

"I don't know if Mr. Hawkins will approve that, but I'll ask."

"Thanks."

Deeps reached in his pocket and drew out a black metallic sleeve. CELL SECURE was printed on the cover. He ripped open the Velcro and slid out my dead phone. "Here. You'll need this for your defense."

I turned it over in my hand. "The feds will never let me testify. They'll kill me first."

"What's in those files that scares them so much?"

Really? You don't know? "How about a recording that could get someone very high up impeached?"

"d.a.m.n. That would be worth a lot to the right person."

The right person would never get his hands on it. If Luke had succeeded in getting the thumb drive to the reporters, Jouvert's crimes would be all over the news. But either Luke missed his meeting, or the reporters were too scared to run the story, or they'd been permanently silenced.

How could I ever have thought we'd succeed against such impossible odds?

"Yeah, too bad you can't cash that in. I bet the guy on the tape would pay a million bucks to keep his business quiet."

Blackmail. The idea lit my brain like a search flare.

Could I trade this recording for my life? If I couldn't use it to sink Jouvert, maybe I could at least protect myself. "I need to talk to Mr. Ho."

At first, Ho didn't want to talk, but that changed when Deeps played him the first seconds of Sparrow's tape. Ho was suddenly so pleased to get the file, you'd think I'd given Hawkins a ten-point lead in the polls. "You were right to bring this to me," he said. His lips smacked together like he'd eaten a juicy tidbit. "I think we can do something with it."

I fled to my room where I bent over the toilet, and my empty stomach heaved acid up my throat. The cramping brought me to my knees, and I coughed and coughed as my body tried to rid itself of what I'd just done.

When the heaving stopped, I pulled myself up to the sink. The makeup I'd carefully applied was smeared and melted. I washed my face clean, then hung my hands under the water.

I heard Sparrow's breathy whisper teasing Jouvert, the rustle of clothing, his moan. I forced my eyes wide open, trying not to picture what Sparrow had done to get Jouvert to confess to her.

She gave her life to take him down, and I just threw that away.

Oh, Sparrow. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

My sweater was soaked and the sleeves sagged over my hands. I peeled it off and dropped it on the floor. Grape-colored bruises dotted my arms where Hawkins had grabbed me.

But desperate people do desperate things, right?

I didn't have another way out. If I hadn't done what I did, I would have been the next of Maggie's contacts to go missing. The Paternalists didn't want a public trial. They wanted silence.

I collapsed on the bed. In the eucalyptus grove at the edge of the property, I spied someone pacing and punching the air, and goose b.u.mps ran up my arms as I saw it was Hawkins.

I hate you, I thought. I'm glad you're suffering. You don't deserve to win.

The afternoon crawled by as I waited for Jouvert's response.

Deeps insisted I leave my room and come outside. He carried a couple chairs out on the terrace and tried to teach me Texas hold 'em, but I couldn't focus. He had the chef make me chicken soup, but I threw it up. It was late in the afternoon when I tried asking him if I could call Dad and Yates. "You know I could be dead tomorrow. I just want a chance to say good-bye."

"Mr. Hawkins said no calls until we know your status."

"Please. I won't ask you for anything else."

"You have to be patient."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

Deeps shrugged. "The sun's going down. How about we go inside?"

"No, I want to stay out here. I want to listen to the waves."

Deeps brought me a cashmere throw so I could sit and watch the stars come out over the ocean.

I kept imagining black SUVs barreling down Hawkins' drive. Men in bulletproof vests, rappelling from a helicopter, and dozens of guns trained on me. Maybe there'd be an "accident" and I'd fly, shackled and handcuffed, out of the back seat of a Trailblazer off the Pacific Coast Highway and down the cliff.

The last rays of sunlight left the sky and I realized that Jouvert wasn't afraid of anything on that tape. So what if he'd taken a trillion in bribes from the Saudis? Jouvert knew that as soon as he made a deal with the Saudis for nukes, they'd put him in the Oval Office. He'd be the next president.

The feds would take me, but then at least I'd escape being Hawkins' wife and punching bag. I reached for Becca's dolphin around my neck.

I walked across the still-warm terrace and curled my toes over the stone edge. Black ocean and star-spangled sky spread out before me. The wind lifted my hair and billowed the blanket around my shoulders into a sail.

For once, I was glad there was no railing between me and the water. I picked a cl.u.s.ter of bright stars way out over the ocean and lost myself in them.

The star twinkle made me wonder if heaven was real, and if Mom was waiting for me. I imagined her watching over me tonight, knowing I'd join her soon. She looked the way she was Before, smiling, her arms open to embrace me.

I didn't have to wait for Jouvert to decide my fate. And I didn't have to do what Hawkins wanted, either. I could decide. I felt my body lean, making a choice.

"Avie?" I recognized Hawkins' voice behind me, but not the careful tone. "I was looking for you."

All I have to do is let go.

"Avie."

I looked over my shoulder. Hawkins hung back about ten feet.

Good-bye.

"Don't you want to hear the good news?" he said.

A wave slammed into the rocks below, sending the force through my bones. "What news?" My voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

"Senator Fletcher has changed his mind about not campaigning for me. Actually, the entire leadership of the Paternalist movement has pledged their support. And do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because Vice President Jouvert requested their cooperation. Once he heard a few seconds of his pillow talk with Sparrow, Jouvert was eager to help us."

Us? "Is the government dropping its charges against me?"

"That should be settled by morning."

I turned back to the water, dazed like I'd emerged from the wreckage of a tornado. The Paternalists would leave me alone, but now I had to survive Hawkins. I let the blanket drop and the wind threw it over the cliff. It fell in a slow jerky spiral before catching on the rocks below. A second later, a wave tore the blanket off, and it was gone.

"I wouldn't blame you," Hawkins said.

I didn't respond.

"Actually, I might do the same if I were in your position."

I peered at him. Was he pretending to understand?

"I shouldn't have hit you. Or shaken you today. That was wrong. I apologize."

I felt the last shreds of Fearless wake up inside me, and I stepped away from the edge. "Don't think your apology makes things right between us, because it doesn't. I don't forgive you. I will never forgive you."

Hawkins didn't move as I skirted around him and retreated across the terrace. On the way back to my room, I replayed what had just happened: Hawkins could have let me jump, but he didn't. He wanted something from me, I was sure of it, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

I'd know soon enough, and I probably wasn't going to like it. But one thing I could guarantee, I would never let him hit me or shake me again. And I'd never let him touch me. Ever.

26.

I was dreaming about kissing Luke when I began to awaken. We were back in the van on the side of the snowy highway, our lips breaking apart for a quick breath, before crashing together again. "Avie, come with me," he whispered. "We'll have a good life up in the mountains-we'll be free."

My eyes fluttered open, and I looked out, registering the wall and the grove of eucalyptus trees. I was in Hawkins' compound, but where in the world was Luke?

Had Streicker's contact given Luke a ride to the mountains or had he left Luke to fend for himself on the Denver streets? I felt sick, realizing it had been two days since I'd left him, and I wondered if he'd guessed what happened, or if he was cursing me for running away without a word.

When I turned over, there was a spray of orchids in a gla.s.s cylinder beside the bed. They were the palest pink, a flock of b.u.t.terflies gathered on a stalk. I ran my finger along one waxy petal, chilled that someone had crept into my room and left them while I slept.