Page 63 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Alex

It wasn’t there.

Alex would have thought King was lying—she would have thought King was wrong. But King was never wrong, so all she could do

was stand and gaze into the little black void and say, “Where is it?” Because it didn’t make any sense. Nothing made sense. “King—”

“It was here.”

“Well, clearly it’s not here.”

“That’s impossible.” He started clawing through the safe, tossing stacks of cash and piles of passports on the floor. “It

was here.”

She spun and looked around the cluttered room. “Are you sure no one grabbed you here and ransacked the place?”

“No.” King braced his hands on the wall like maybe he was going to push it over—tear the castle down stone by stone with his

bare hands.

“Because either you took the ring out of the safe or someone took it out for you. So which is it?”

“I... I don’t remember.”

“You remember everything!” she shouted, but King was shaking his head.

“I didn’t take it out.”

“Where are your cameras?” Alex spat.

“What?”

“Don’t tell me this place isn’t wired to the nines.”

“Not on the inside.”

She didn’t believe him. “King.”

“This is my home, Sterling. Or it was.”

“Fine.” Alex crossed her arms. “Then show me your exterior cameras. Let’s see who came calling while you were gone.”

“No one can get into that safe but me—not without blasting it to bits, which clearly didn’t happen, so...”

“So why would you take it out?”

“I wouldn’t! I would keep it in there. Just like I’ve kept it in there since the safe was installed five years ago.”

“Either you took it out before you left for Vegas—”

“No. Never. ” He was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Or someone got in here without your knowledge, probably after you left. So what is it, King?”

He looked like there were a thousand things he could have said and not one he dared to utter. So he just turned and said,

“Come on, let’s go look at the cameras.”

***

Alex thought she knew that castle. She’d spent almost a week roaming the halls and dancing in the kitchen—soaking in the tub.

But she’d been half dead and half in love and, surely, between those two things, she had plenty of excuses for being mostly

stupid.

So she could almost forgive herself for forgetting about the room at the end of the hall, but as soon as they turned the corner,

she remembered.

“Wait.”

“What?” King asked, but Alex was already heading toward the door.

“We don’t need the ring. We need Nikolai .”

“I know.”

Now she was getting giddy. “And the world’s foremost authority on Nikolai used to work right—”

“Wait!” King said, but it was too late. Alex was already turning the knob and throwing open the door—

To chaos.

It was still his father’s room. The walls were still covered with his father’s ramblings and research. But it was different now because there was a new layer on top of the old madness—a year’s worth of newspaper clippings and photographs. Notes and manic scribbles—

Stay in Europe (somewhere she speaks the language?)

Go somewhere new? Morocco? South America? Australia?

Associates?

Who does she know?

Who does she TRUST?

Alex turned slowly, following the pieces of red string that stretched across a wall of maps, past high-tech monitors, blinking

with lines of code.

The room had changed, but it was also exactly the same because his father’s work had been slowly papered over with a new search

for a new subject.

And, in the middle of it all, there was a new photograph.

Alex remembered the moment when he’d taken it. She was wearing the top to a pair of old pajamas, and she was trying to flip

a pancake in the air, but, it turns out, it’s easier to kill a man with a shoelace than it is to flip a pancake, and the result

was batter all over the ceiling and dripping down onto her hair.

She was staring straight at the camera. And she was laughing. She was happy. She was his.

“You were gone,” she heard him whisper. “I had to find you. I know why you left, and I know why you didn’t come back, but...

I had to find you.”

Suddenly, it all made sense. The bottles and the broken things. Even the beard. He’d spent the last year looking and worrying

and trying not to become his father. “Michael...”

“Where were you, Alex? Just tell me. Where were you?”

“You said not to come back.” She didn’t want to have this conversation—because it wouldn’t be a conversation. It would be

a fight. No. It would be the fight. They’d been avoiding it for days because they didn’t have the time and Alex didn’t have the bandwidth.

They had to find the ring.

They had to find Nikolai.

They had to figure out why the world was chasing them, because that was the only way they could stop running. Alex needed

to stop running, because she’d been running for a year...

From him.

“Alex...”

“You said to leave, so I left.”

“Where were you?” King roared, but then he pulled himself back. “Never mind.” He was backing away. He was the one leaving

this time and she couldn’t find the words to stop him. “I’m going to go find something to eat. Stay. Go. Do whatever you want.”

He was embarrassed. He was ashamed. He was—she looked around the room—exactly what he’d been afraid he’d turn into. Alex wanted

to hold the ten-year-old boy who had lost his mother to a bomb and his father to a mystery. She wanted to turn back time.

***

Alex didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at the walls covered with King’s theories and guesses and leads.

He hadn’t even been close.

There was a time when nothing could have made Alex prouder. She’d outsmarted and outrun the Great Michael Kingsley, but all

Alex felt was lonely.

She wasn’t mad at herself for running, but for the first time, she wondered what life might have been like if she hadn’t done

it quite so well.

The phone number of the service she and Zoe used was scrawled on a piece of paper and tacked to the center of the wall, which

made sense. That number would have been King’s best clue for how to reach her.

Maybe it was the sight of the number... or being back inside the castle walls... or maybe she was just feeling Big Feelings and she didn’t like them and didn’t understand them, but Alex suddenly needed to talk to an expert.

It had been a year since she’d heard her sister’s voice, so Alex picked up the phone and dialed, not really expecting to hear—

“ You have seventeen new messages. ”

They dated back a year and, suddenly, she held her breath and closed her eyes and waited for—

“It’s me.” Alex felt her heart stop beating—because he’d called her. Of course he’d called her. But it was like listening

to a ghost when he said, “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m so, so... Come back. Please. Or call me. Just... I’ll meet you anywhere.

I’ll do anything. We can go get Zoe together. Just call me, Alex. Please.”

There was a beep on the line and a new message from two days later.

“I hope Zoe’s okay. I hope you’re okay. Because I’m not.”

Beep.

“I heard about Italy. About Kozlov. And I know you know you’re safe now. I know you know... Come back. Please. I’m sorry.”

Beep.

“Merritt says she hasn’t heard from you, but she swears you’re probably fine. It’s been six months, Alex. Please tell me you’re

fine.”

Beep.

“I miss you.”

Beep.

“I need you.”

Beep.

“Come back.”

Beep.

“Please.”

Beep.

“Come”—the voice slurred; her heart broke—“back.”

Beep.

The last message was the most recent, of course. She was expecting that. She just wasn’t expecting—

“ Wednesday, January fifteenth ,” the mechanical voice chimed, and Alex felt the world tilt for a moment because—

Wednesday. One of the missing days. Someone had left her a message. Someone had called her. Someone—

“It’s King.”

Wait. King had called her?

She wanted to yell for him in the other room—stop the recording and hit the speakerphone. It was their best clue in days—their

only clue. But—

“Look, I know you hate me and that’s fine, but I’m not calling for me. Sterling... it’s Zoe.” Her heart fell through the

floor and her mind flashed to a million worst-case scenarios: Her sister was hurt. Her sister was dying. Her sister was—

“In Vegas,” the voice on the phone was saying. “Sawyer’s been trying to find you because... they’re eloping. Or they were.

When they got off the plane, Zoe collapsed and... it’s her heart. And, Sterling, it’s bad. I’m trying every number I have

for you because I know you might not get this. But if you get this... please. You need to go to Vegas. Now.”

It was so urgent. So convincing. So... real.

It sounded so real, but it wasn’t. Alex knew it wasn’t, because Zoe and Sawyer were already married—King had told her so himself.

Her sister had been married for months, and King knew it. He knew it. But he’d lied.

Suddenly, Alex’s heart was racing and her mouth was dry because she finally knew why she’d dropped everything and gone back

to the States. She knew what the bait in the trap had been.

And, most of all, she knew who had set it.

“Hey. I found some of those digestive biscuits that are actually cookies.” King was standing in the doorway. “If you’re still

hungry and want that bath, I could... What?” He studied her, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

“When did Sawyer and Zoe get married?” she asked, and he looked at her like maybe she’d hit her head.

“Six months ago.” He took a bite of a cookie, then licked a crumb off his lip.

He was coming closer and she was inching back. She’d been going over it in her head, calculating angles and figuring odds,

for so long that it didn’t make any sense—but it did. It was like she’d known it for days but she’d kept her eyes squeezed

tight, totally unable—or just unwilling—to see...

She held up the phone. “Then why did you call me last Wednesday and tell me they were eloping to Vegas?”

He looked at the phone. His eyes went wide.

And then she tried to kill him.