Page 45

Moment of truth. I pull the wig over the cap. Adjust it. Slip on the thick-framed glasses. Step back, adjusting my weight gingerly to avoid my swollen left ankle, and survey my new look in the mirror of the small motel bathroom.

Despite the circumstances, I have to admit some pleasure at the transformation. With the long brown straight hair and the thick bangs falling nearly to my eyes, I look like a starving grad student with a severe vitamin D deficiency. No one would recognize me as Julia Walden.

“Lily Paddington,” I practice out loud, combing my hair over my shoulders, fluffing my bangs. “My name is Lily Paddington, from Saint Louis, Missouri.”

I glance at the time, as I’ve been doing, oh, every two minutes since I woke up. It’s almost ten in the morning, which is when I’m supposed to call Ally back. In the hour since I woke up to the knock that delivered Christi’s suitcase of supplies, I’ve gone through both packs of premeasured coffee grounds for the miniature motel room coffee maker. I’ve pumped twice in the past hour, too, though it hasn’t brought the relief I hoped for. Even with repeated self-massage and a hot shower, the knot in my breast has just gotten harder and more painful. My ankle is getting worse, too, now swollen to twice its normal size. I can’t believe I didn’t think to ask Christi to include painkillers along with the wig and the phone and the other stuff. At least it’s my left ankle, so I can still drive.

The clock turns from 9:59 to 10:00. Hopping out of the bathroom on my right foot, I settle on the bed, carefully stretching out my left leg. I’m trembling from some mixture of caffeine and adrenaline as I punch in Ally’s number. Even now, I want to keep on believing that Andy and Eden are on my side. That somehow, they lied to protect me. That two of my most trusted people aren’t the villains of this nightmare.

“Hello?” says Ally.

“It’s me,” I say, putting her on speakerphone.

“Julia!” Her normally bright voice is a little croaky. “Okay. I’ve just pulled an all-nighter, so I hope at least something I found is helpful. Honestly, I’m not sure if it will be. It’s surprisingly difficult to find anything on Andy Wekstein, which tells me he scrubbed the internet at some point. Not just for himself, but his immediate family as well.”

“That sounds suspicious,” I say, pulling a motel notepad and pen off the nightstand.

“Not necessarily. A lot of high-profile people do it. Alright. You ready?”

“Shoot,” I say, uncapping the cheap pen and trying to ignore the steadily increasing volume of my physical pain.

“I’ll start with brief backgrounds. Let’s see—Eden Grace Jeliazkova. Twenty-six. Raised by her grandparents, mother deceased, father lives in New Jersey. She doesn’t appear to have contact with him. She attended Caltech. Founded a student group called No Woman Harmed, organized a couple marches to build awareness around violence against women. Never graduated. Interned for WekTech the summer after her junior year, got hired on full-time right away. Worked on project JULIA alongside Andy.” Ally pauses after this lightning-fast delivery. “At that time, she was the second-highest-paid person at WekTech.”

“Wait—second-highest-paid? Are you sure?” The emo, overall-wearing, weed-smoking sweetheart who sends me adorable selfies with Annaleigh? Even though Andy told me she was super smart, it still feels like being told the kid with the lemonade stand is also running a Fortune 500 company.

“Yes.”

I frantically scribble notes. “And she’s still on payroll?”

“Correct.”

“What’s she doing in Eauverte?”

“I’m not sure. But girl has done her taxes, and WekTech is definitely her employer.”

I rub my forehead. “Wow. This is a lot.”

“Ready for Andy?”

“Go ahead.”

“Full name, Andrew Leonard Wekstein, thirty-seven. Born in Des Moines. Undergrad at Indiana University, accelerated PhD at Carnegie Mellon. Obviously, the founder of WekTech. Parents, still alive as far as we can tell, though like I said, it was very hard to find any information about them. Sister, Laura Wekstein, deceased. He built Wekstein Memorial on IU’s campus in her memory. There’s a small statue of her out front. Let’s see... Oh! You might find this interesting. Through WekTech, Andy has donated millions of dollars to mental health organizations that specialize in suicide prevention. He’s also donated substantial amounts to local women’s shelters in the Los Angeles area.”

Well, there’s one interesting connection between Andy and Eden, besides their interest in robotics: an interest in violence against women.

My skin prickles with awful possibilities. Did Andy and Eden know Josh’s propensities before making me for him? Or is it just some horrible irony that they designed me for a man with anger problems?

“I’m happy to dig deeper on any of this,” says Ally.

“Thank you. I really do appreciate your help,” I say as my eyes run up and down my notes. I stop at Laura W and slowly underline her name. I remember her wistful statue, like she was reaching for a sky she could never touch. “Can I ask, how did Laura Wekstein die? And how old was she?”

“Twenty-one. I couldn’t find anything about her cause of death, though. Not even an obituary. Andy might’ve scrubbed that. If you give me more time...”

“What did she look like?” The bronze statue’s features weren’t that defined. I’ve been imagining a short girl with curly dark hair like Andy. But a different idea is blossoming.

“I only found one picture of her, and it’s black-and-white,” says Ally. “But her coloring seems lighter than Andy’s. Maybe brown hair, or even dark blond?”

“What about red?” I feel like I’m teetering on a precipice. If Andy killing Josh to defend me was dark, this whiff of an idea is even darker. There’s a sharp pain in my thigh. Ah—I’ve been digging my nails through the thin material of my leggings. The second I lift my nails, the pain in my ankle and chest goes poker hot, like pain is sitting on both sides of a seesaw. I grit my teeth. “Could she have been a redhead?”

“Maybe...”

“You have Facebook, right?” I say.

“Sure do.”

“Look up Laura Pine. It’s a memorial page.”

“Okay, I think I found it,” says Ally after a while.

“Is it her?”

There’s a brief silence. “I can’t be sure. The picture I saw was from a long time ago.”

“I guess I’m wondering if Pine might be her married name,” I say. “Can you look into that? See if there’s a marriage record for Laura Wekstein?”

“Sure, but it might take some time.”

“Okay.” I stab the notepad with my pen. Even though I’m frustrated at this roadblock, I can’t shake the feeling that I have everything I need right here. That it’s just a matter of connecting the dots.

I don’t want to wait for Ally to do a second round of research.

Then again... I might not have to.

If Josh’s stalker girlfriend was Andy Wekstein’s sister, there’s someone who’d know. Someone who obsessively followed every detail of Josh’s life and cared deeply about who he dated—and knew he had a thing for redheads.

She’s the last person I ever wanted to see again.

And this time, I don’t have a gun.