A "Welcome to New Mexico" sign passed by on the side of the interstate, marking a psychological line in the sand which Emily never thought she'd cross. The sickness growing in the pit of her stomach ratcheted up a notch and her blood temperature dropped a degree. She could almost hear Maxwell in her head saying, how could you abandon him again?

And how could you leave him with Queen Bitch, her conscience added.

What the fuck had she been thinking? She must be out of her mind letting that woman take care of Aaron while she went on this fool's errand.

She should go back.

Emily scratched her forehead with the gunsight. The cold metal felt good against her temple. The rubbing was almost hypnotic.

"If you're going to blow your brains out, would you mind not doing it in my car," Nikki said.

Emily jerked the pistol away. Pointing a loaded gun at your own head was definitely a bad idea, but Emily was no longer certain she had any good ones. The further they got from home, the more time Emily had to reflect on how truly terrible her judgement had been lately.

Lately?

Or was it more accurate to say always?

It seemed that in her life there were mistakes and then there were momentous fuck-ups. Time would tell what this decision had been, although she was already fairly certain which way the coin would land.

She could always tell Nikki to turn the car around. She should tell her to go back. But Emily would look like a total lunatic—and maybe she was. It wasn't normal to waiver from one deep conviction to the opposite in barely an hour. She had fought so hard to convince Nikki to go after R.J. She had begged, appealed to her sympathy, played her weaknesses, even not so subtly threatened her with the gun. How, was she supposed to say forget all that, let's go home?

Emily needed to suck it up and accept her choice. In a couple of days, it would be over and she would have Aaron in her arms again.

She needed to do this.

She owed people.

When she was in trouble,  Max had saved her and brought her home to Aaron. Now she had to return the favor and save him. Maxwell would never forgive himself if he killed Amy. Emily had to stop him from making a huge mistake. For all their sakes.

Amy might not have been blood but Emily had learned that family had little to do with what ran through a person's veins. Could she live with herself afterwards, if she sat by while the girl she watched grow up was killed?

Emily wouldn't have felt so much trepidation, if she hadn't turned to Lauren for help. In hindsight, it would have been better if she had summoned Satan to her living room and sold her soul. It would have been a far less repugnant arrangement and likely a cheaper one.

Emily tried to tell herself that it wasn't her fault. The Agency's was to blame for keeping her in the dark. Maxwell's should have answered her calls. Gracie's should never have planted the bug in her ear—ask your boyfriend. Who else did she have to turn to? She was given no other choice but to call Lauren.

Lauren was the only other person she knew who had connections and could find out what was happening. And she found things out remarkably quickly.

"That whole search for the girl is a smoke screen," she had said on the phone when she called back. "Orders are to kill both of them. And it seems that your horrible Agent Wiley is leading the hunt."

"How do you know?" Emily had asked. "Where did you get this information?"

"Dear, people tell me things because they know I protect their anonymity."

Somehow or other the conversation led to Emily inviting Lauren to Phoenix. She couldn't even figure out how Lauren had manipulated her into it. That was the woman's magic.

Fucking witch.

It was Lauren's fault. It was Maxwell's fault. It was everyone else's fault. But Emily knew better. She had done the one thing she swore she would never do when she brought Lauren back into her life. The guilt was hers and hers alone.

Her mind cast back to the previous night, watching Aaron as he slept. His small body moved the blankets in slight oceanic waves in tune to his breathing. She had stood in the doorway not wanting to move—not wanting time to start up again. But she couldn't put off dealing with Lauren forever. She closed the door without a sound and crept downstairs.

The first thing Emily saw when she entered the living room were the bare, perfectly pedicured feet resting on the footstool. And the first thing she heard was a voice filled with false warmth saying, "How is the little darling? He was so exhausted. Really, I don't know why you let him stay up so late."

"I don't need parenting advice from you, Lauren."

"Your loss...and his." She folded her hands on her lap in a way that suggested she was putting a book away to give Emily her full attention. "Well, don't worry. He'll be safe in my hands while you're away. Unless you've come to your senses and changed your mind. I know you haven't asked me, but I think you should mind your own business. Why put your neck out.  There's nothing you could possibly do for them anyway."

Emily wasn't going to argue. How could she possibly explain that she had to try and help Amy, when Lauren had never risked a hair on her bleached head to save her own daughter?

"I haven't changed my mind but I'm not leaving yet. In case you haven't noticed, it's a big country. I need to find some clue as to where they're heading."

Lauren rubbed a lipstick stain off the rim of her coffee cup and said, "The answer really isn't so hard. Can't you use your brain for once?"

"If I had used my brain, I would never have called you."

Lauren ignored her. "It's really quite simple. The key is the man." She sighed with a theatrical flourish. "As so often it is."

"What man?"

"The abductor. This R.J. Blass. I really do find people who use initials for their name pretentious. Don't you? What on Earth does R.J. even stand for?"

Emily felt a tension headache coming on. Lauren's imperious tone boiled her like a cooked lobster. Not only was it exasperating but it was a reminder of how Emily had found it amusing back in those days on the con, when she had been fooled into loving this foul woman.

"It's not like I can give him a call, you know?"

"Seriously, have you forgotten everything I've taught you? He's immaterial. His weakness is what you need to exploit. You want to know where he's going, find the person who he told."

"And if he didn't tell anyone?"

"Do you really believe this Poindexter broke the girl out of a top secret government lab without help?"

So that had led her to Nikki.

Emily had waited outside her restaurant, until she came by after lunch to open up the kitchen.

"He's going to kill him," Emily told her, once she realized the woman still cared for R.J. "Do you understand? If we don't stop Maxwell, he's going to kill both the girl and your boyfriend."

That's when Nikki finally opened up. "I was telling the truth. He never told me where they were heading. But we can find him with his phone."

Emily glanced at the tracking app on Nikki's smartphone as Arizona and Aaron got further away, with each mile of the interstate passing beneath them. Nikki and her should catch up to them by nightfall, if they stayed put.

The map showed that R.J. hadn't moved from the small town outside of Pecos, Texas. It was strange how short a distance they had traveled since the escape, and stranger that they just seemed to be camped out in the middle of nowhere. If it were her, Emily would have put as much distance as she could have between her and The Music Box. Maybe R.J. knew someone in that town and thought it was too off the beaten path for the Agency to find them there.

Or perhaps, R.J. had ditched the phone there and they were long gone. That's what Emily would have done. If she were on the run, there was no way she'd hang onto a smartphone with the amount of invasive programs the NSA had. Hell, you didn't even have to worry about the government. As it turned out, anyone could install a small program that would track your every move.

Emily felt an alarm of suspicion building behind all the static of her worry. "Why did you set up the phone to track him? Are you some kind of stalker ex-girlfriend?"

Nikki kept her eyes straight in front of her. The tension in her shoulders spoke volumes.

"What aren't you telling me?" Emily insisted.

"Promise you won't judge me?"

"No promises. Spill." Emily raised her pistol enough for Nikki to see the barrel in her periphery.

"I didn't meet R.J. by accident. I was hired."

***

Author'sNote: Ican hear you all screaming: "I KNEW IT!"