Page 122 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Part Four

Home Base

“In the end, maybe Maverick Dillan was right. Maybe he’s not the villain. Maybe we are for watching him.”

HARLEY GRANGER,

Stranger Than Fiction: A Podcast

“What Happened to Chloe Miranda?”

49

ADELE

“Are you comfortable, Adele?”

Shewasn’tcomfortable, hadn’t been since Falcão Island.

Her body ached. Her back, an injured neck, leg, and elbow were all healing slowly. She struggled with flashbacks, was in therapy for trauma. She hadn’t slept through the night without vivid, terrifying dreams in months.

But she was alive, thanks to Blake. Both her kids were okay. Miller, for all his crimes and betrayals, had come back when they’d needed him. And he was now in custody. And after it all, the healing had begun. That was enough.

So it was truthful when she answered, “Yes, I’m okay.”

“Thank you for being here,” said podcaster Harley Granger.

He was younger than she thought he’d be, slim and unassuming in a long-sleeved black Vans T-shirt, a beanie over dirty-blond hair, jeans. They sat in a quiet, dim recording studio. It was nicely appointed with ergonomic chairs and a big walnut table between them. The professional mics hung from the ceiling, monitors and a soundboard blinked on a table lining the far wall. There was a pleasant quietude to the place as if nothing outside existed and nothing mattered as much as the conversation that was about to begin.

Through the glass window, Harley’s producer, Roger, tapped on a keyboard. Finally, he gave Harley a thumbs-up, and a light box glowed red, readingRecording.

“Folks, today I’m sitting down with Adele Crane, who was at the heart of the Extreme Hide and Seek scandal and what I like to think of as the final chapter in the Chloe Miranda story.”

She’d heard a lot about Harley Granger, that he was unethical, tricked people into saying things they didn’t mean, not honoring the victims in his reporting. But there was something easy and warm about him, the inquiring gaze of his heavily lidded eyes. She felt like she could tell him anything and whatever it was it wouldn’t surprise him. She planned to tell him everything she knew.

“Adele, is it fair to say that you went to Falcão Island expecting one thing and found something else altogether?”

Adele had to think about that for a second. Whathadshe expected when she signed up for Extreme Hide and Seek? A game. A challenge. Whathadshe wanted? Money, first of all. No point in lying about that. But also, she wanted to prove something—to her kids, to herself, to the world. That she was more than just a survivor. That she was a winner. That Miller hadn’t won, that he hadn’t deceived her for years, then left her broken and struggling to care for her kids.

“That’s fair, yes,” she said. “I went there expecting a challenge, to play a game I thought I had a chance at winning. Instead, I walked into a storm—literally and figuratively.”

“Malinka Nicqui calls you a hero. She says you saved her life.”

Adele had to laugh at that. “I’m no hero. And I had help saving Malinka. Cody Bryce, who most people know as Wild Cody,saved us both, literally pulling us back from the edge. He sacrificed his own win and his life when we needed him.”

She held back tears, took a deep breath, remembering those terrifying moments when she thought the world was going to end.

“He helped me save Malinka. He stayed with us until the end, when Hugo Silva found us and showed us the way out through the tunnels as Enchantments collapsed. So if we’re looking for heroes, I’d choose Hugo and Cody.”

Harley tapped his pen on the notes in front of him. “We’re always looking for our heroes, aren’t we?”

“I think it helps to believe there are people around without flaws, someone to come in for the rescue when things goFUBAR, as Maverick Dillan likes to say. But I don’t think there’s a person alive without flaws, someone who doesn’t make mistakes.”

He turned an intense gaze on her. Harley Granger, she knew, had faced down his own scandals. “What mistakes haveyoumade, Adele?”

She smiled. “Too many to count. Leaving my kids behind to chase after a cash prize, for one. Before that, not seeing my husband for what he was. For relying on him for the life I thought of as my own but couldn’t sustain without him.”

He folded his hands together on the table between them.