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14

ADELE

Change is relentless , Miller used to say. Even when things seem like they’re standing still, they’re in constant motion. The good. The bad. Nothing lasts.

That’s what Adele had loved about Miller first, his mind. No one would call him handsome in a classic sense. Tall and lanky, too thin, with a long nose and searing dark eyes. He wore his hair to his shoulders, was a distance runner. What he lacked in beauty he made up for in confidence, virility. It was his intensity, his passion, his appetites—for great food, for art, for invention and design—his ideas, that drew her in and kept her rapt. It was like the world was just this expansive buffet for him, wide-open, all-you-can-eat, there for the taking. And he took it with gusto.

They’d met at a half-marathon in Florida. Adele thought of it often. How she had just graduated from college, wondering what she was going to do with her English degree. She had been a middling student, restless, disorganized. She struggled to sit through classes, always looking for the next physical challenge, anything that would get her outside and into her body. She’d had the vague, childish idea that she wanted to help people. An online quiz pointed her toward psychology, and she was thinking about it. Even though she didn’t know if she could take more school or even if she could get in after her mediocre undergraduate performance.

She finished well in the half-marathon, beating her personal best, and at the last minute decided to attend the after-party instead of crashing in front of the television in her cheap hotel room. It was a glittery night on Clearwater Beach, stars twinkling, palms swaying, the scent of jasmine on the cool air.

She mingled a bit, congratulated the winner, consoled someone who’d turned an ankle and was on crutches at the party. Then she’d wandered outside by herself to listen to the waves.

“You overpronate,” he said to her, coming up and handing her a glass of white wine she didn’t order. She’d been standing at the edge of the hotel pool deck, looking out at the Gulf of Mexico. Something about his smile. She took the glass.

“Oh?” she said. First thought about Miller: What an arrogant jerk. But in an amusing way.

“Yeah,” he said, coming to lean on the railing beside her. “You turn your right foot out just a little when you run.”

Because every woman loves a mansplainer.

“I know what overpronate means.”

He regarded her, offered a nod. “It slows you down and will likely lead to injury. You’re young, but if you like to run and want to keep doing it, I’d see a physical therapist.”

“Let me guess. You’re a physical therapist.”

He laughed at that, a warm, generous sound that made her want to laugh, too.

“No,” he said. “I’m a biotech engineer. I design prosthetics. So I know a few things about how the body works. Plus, I have my own overpronation to contend with, and the resulting injury from ignoring it.”

They spent the rest of that night together, just talking about his work, about what she wanted to do with her life. Did he know she was unformed? Unmoored? She wondered about that later. Did he somehow sense that she was looking for direction, that she wasn’t secure on her own path in life? Maybe it was just her youth, ten years younger than Miller, that told him the story about Adele. Her parents had bankrolled six months. “Find yourself,” her father had urged. “Travel. Do the things you love, let them lead you now, while you’re young and free. Once you get into the thick of it, work, family, life, it’s harder to change course.” That find yourself fund was running out.

The next thing she knew she was engaged to Miller, working at his company in human resources. She was good at it; it checked a box. She was helping people find meaningful work, counseling them when they struggled. Then she and Miller were married. Then she was pregnant with Violet. Miller wanted her to stay home for a year; she’d wanted that, too. Then there was Blake. Then she was corporate wife, full-time mom, hosting events, running charity auctions, sitting in car lines. The years ticked by.

“Was this what you wanted?” her father had asked during a visit. It was a gentle query, not a judgment. Though, it felt like one.

“What could be better than this?” her mother put in. “Look at her life.”

The big house, the beautiful cars, the boat, the private school. She was blessed. Privileged. She knew that; it would be ungrateful to complain about anything. She was too busy to worry for long about whether or not there could have been something else for her. She told Miller what her dad had said.

“You’re young,” Miller said. “There’s time for you to figure out another chapter when the kids are older.”

That made sense. She saw so many people they knew struggle with two big careers and multiple kids. Marriages imploded under the strain; the kids were the collateral damage. She and Miller, their roles were clearly defined. He ran his company; she ran their life. It worked until it didn’t. Until he grew dark and started to pull away, subtly at first. Then disappearing on sudden trips, sleeping at the office, withdrawn, preoccupied at home with her and even the kids.

She thought maybe he was having an affair.

Then one night, he didn’t come home from work when she expected him, didn’t call to say he’d be late. She couldn’t reach him. She still remembered that creeping knowledge that something was horribly wrong as she watched the kids sleep. She sat in the dim hallway outside their rooms, calling and calling him. Over and over.

The next morning the FBI raided his office and their house.

She never saw her husband again.

She couldn’t go there, to that moment when she felt like she’d built her life on quicksand and had no idea how she was going to get herself and the kids out as she sank and suffocated.

Never let them grab you by the throat. Another Millerism, as she’d come to think of it. Things that he said before , that meant one thing, that might have seemed funny or ironic or wise. But that seemed to mean something else entirely after .

She had that feeling now, of the air being squeezed from her, as the rest of the group seemed to take the violence and drama in stride and go about their business: pitching tents, and setting up the command center, starting the fire as the air seemed to grow cooler, damper. Only Wild Cody wore an expression that matched her concern, a kind of curious frown, as he expertly and quickly set up his small tent. He turned to look at her, and she blushed to be caught staring. But he just flashed her an enigmatic smile and disappeared into his tent.

Another Millerism: Always take the time to examine your options.

What were her choices now?

The strange woman, the armed men, and their altercation with Maverick took the supposed game to another level. She’d come here to play hide and seek, to win money. Not to risk her life, leaving her kids with no one. She stared at the last ominous text. It seemed to pulse on her screen.

She could quit, get a ride back to the airport, where she’d book a flight home.

But then she remembered her maxed-out credit cards. The rent. The back taxes she still owed from the games Miller had played with the IRS. Her meager paycheck barely covered their monthly expenses. She had almost no savings. The slim earnings from the sale of their big house after the IRS garnished some of it, and she discovered Miller had borrowed against it, was almost gone. Every month she had less money, not more. There was college coming for both kids. Her own future to consider.

She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t face another failure. It seemed Extreme, or maybe circumstances, had her by the throat. There were no options. Only to play and win.

Malinka and the Extreme team had disappeared.

The trailer generator roared to life.

Adele wondered if she was the only one who was left feeling like a strange pall had settled over everything. Then she realized the difference between her and the others. She was a mom. The stakes, for her, were higher than they were for anyone else here.

Adele returned to her tent, shouldered her pack, light with just a bottle of water, some jerky, a small first-aid kit. She attached her backpack light and slipped from the tent, moving soundlessly toward the narrow path that led to the casitas.

Though they were just approaching noon, the heavy cloud cover and thick foliage made it feel like night. Somewhere a bird called, long and low. The trees and foliage seemed in constant motion, shifting, whispering in the wind, frequent scurrying in the underbrush.

A storm was coming. She was receiving weather updates from Blake, who was tracking the system as it made its way toward the island. But Adele didn’t fear the natural world. People with all their secrets and lies, hidden agendas, the masks they wore…that’s what scared her.

Check out the casitas for your hiding place , suggested Blake. That’s where I would hunker down if I was playing.

The paver stones were jagged and crooked as teeth, years of neglect allowing them to settle unevenly into the red earth beneath. Thick weeds had pushed up; vines reached treacherously across. Adele kept her footing light, her eyes on the ground in front of her, knowing that one wrong step could lead to a trip—a tweaked knee, a twisted ankle. Any injury could be the difference between winning and losing.

The path wound, studded by rusted ground lamps that no longer worked. More movement in thick woods all around her, skuttling.

Her own breathing was loud in the silence.

Up ahead, the pool deck. Porticos grown over, tables long toppled covered with creeping vines, rusted chairs tilted every which way, overgrown with weeds, the pool itself full of garbage, debris, even a small tree that had grown up through the plaster bottom. Nature will take itself back. The made things we leave behind will be slowly swallowed by the earth. Something comforting in that, right? That we can only do so much damage. That the temporary nature of our existence limits our harm.

Just down one of the paths that slivered off the pool deck she knew she’d find the casitas. Spacious cabins with multiple rooms. She’d already been here, in a sense, using Blake’s WholeEarthNow image to inspect the property from above. She knew the place as well as she could from a distance.

It must have been stunningly beautiful once, a paradisial hideaway for the very rich. She’d cast about for photos online and found a pdf of a back issue of Elegant Traveler magazine. Gorgeously appointed rooms, poolside cabanas with flowing gauzy curtains, marble lobby with a tiered crystal chandelier. No expense had been spared in the pursuit of a luxurious setting.

Real-estate mogul Enrico Bello borrowed way too much money to build Esperanca. He’d erected this behemoth in an effort to bring Americans and Europeans to a hidden paradise. But limited flights from the US and too-high prices for most European travelers had kept the property from prospering. Staff, unpaid, left their posts. Things slowly fell to seed. Less than five years from opening to abandonment. Now forty years later, it crumbled, a monument to failure.

She’d known men like Enrico, men whose ambition surpassed their means, their abilities. She’d married one. Adele was familiar with the feeling of picking her way through the ruins of a once-beautiful thing.

The sound of movement up ahead stopped her in her tracks. Not animal scurry. Footsteps, hard and quick. Adele shifted off the path and crouched in the foliage. She made herself still and small, willing herself to disappear into the heavy shadows.

“What are we doing?” A male voice. Tense and angry. “This is…wrong.”

Hector. One of Maverick’s crew.

He stopped just feet from where she had hidden herself. She held her breath and watched as he took something from his pack, which he wore on the front of his body like a marsupial pouch.

“This wasn’t the plan,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this .”

He was obviously on the phone, talking to someone through his earbuds.

“Alex is gone. Angeline looks like she’s about to stroke out from stress. Mav is just…unhinged. It’s not fun anymore.”

Adele watched as he placed a small wireless camera carefully in the crook of a branch, affixing it with some kind of gummy substance. Expertly, he arranged foliage around the lens. No one would see it as they were passing by in the dark.

Okay, so the game was rigged. Good to know. She’d figured as much, she just hadn’t known how. This was why her father always insisted on recon before any excursion. He’d study trails online, scan through hiker and climber reviews, get all the data he could about the weather, the area. He had taught Adele that knowing your environment was critical to success.

Hector, a bulky shadow, glanced around, uneasy. Maybe he sensed her staring at him. His eyes grazed over her hiding space but didn’t stop.

Was that who she’d seen last night? Maybe he’d been setting up cameras in the hotel, or even planting the book and the cigarettes, to remind her of Miller, to throw her off-kilter. Another thought had occurred to her, too. Something Agent Coben had said, about how people on the run could rarely stay away. How they had their ways of getting in touch. But it wasn’t possible. Was it?

“No,” he said. “No. I’m with you. Of course I am. It’s just—”

One of her superpowers since becoming a mom was the almost sixth sense she’d developed to detect when someone was lying. It hadn’t kicked in with her husband until it was far too late, unfortunately. But with her own kids and those who found their way to her office for this or that infraction or issue, she was like a tuning fork that vibrated in the presence of deception. Was it the way his voice came up an octave? Or the tension in that second no ? The way his words sounded like a plea. Who was he still with—or not? What was he talking about?

But then Hector kept moving up the path, back toward the campsite. His voice growing softer, words becoming inaudible. Adele waited.

She was about to shift in her spot when, down the path in the direction she was headed, she saw another figure step out in front of Hector. Slim, light-footed, and hooded, the form seemed to slip from the darkness between the trees, then stand in the center of the path, arms akimbo. Words were exchanged. Adele couldn’t hear, though she edged closer, straining to catch the words.

Then the two figures came together. Were they fighting?

No. They were kissing, arms wrapping passionately around one another. After a moment, the two moved off down the path.

Okay. Who was that?

Malinka? Angeline? She waited a few moments, crouching in the silence, listening. Angeline was with Maverick. And Hector certainly didn’t seem like Malinka’s type.

So who was that? But they were gone now.

Adele puzzled over it another moment, then she continued down the path, determined to know everything she could about her environment, having learned more than she’d expected about the game.

After a while, she came to the place she’d been looking for. She’d seen it on the satellite image Blake had sent. A casita, nestled in overgrowth, not the farthest from the hotel but the one on highest ground. It was a ruin: a tree had fallen and rested against the tile roof, and the door stood gaping. The sun had disappeared behind a thickening cloud cover, casting the world in a dusky gloom.

Maybe this game was rigged, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she was fearless, maybe she wasn’t. But Adele knew one thing for sure. She going to use every resource at her disposal, and for once, she was going to win.

And then no one would ever have her by the throat again.