Chapter 1

I sit on the couch, the note in my hands, the note that basically tells me they’re going to kill my mom. They don’t come right out and say it, whoever these assholes are, but I get the message.

We need your daddy’s wallet, or you can say goodbye to Mommy. We will send a courier tomorrow at six p.m. to collect the wallet.

The message is written in jagged, almost angry handwriting. They’re talking to me like I’m a kid, some scared twenty-one-year-old coward who will bend the second I see this, but I don’t even know what they mean. I run my thumb over the words daddy's wallet.

I look around at the middle-class living room. The window looks out onto the suburbs. It’s a Saturday morning, and a few children are riding their bikes on the street, making that part of me ache, the one that always longs for a family. But I can’t think about that now.

This place, the expensive coffee table, the fancy wallpaper, it’s all new. We moved in

two years ago, five years after Dad died in a plane crash. The crash has been turned into a Netflix show since then. It was a huge tragedy for the world, but it obliterated Mom. She cried all day and night. In our neighborhood, we had to find a way to make money, not just to pay rent but because we were robbed, too.

I stepped up. I worked illegally, cash-in-hand jobs. I tied my hair up in a cap and wore overalls to the warehouse and hoped none of them noticed or cared I was a girl, a teenage girl. I had to grow up fast. Then, just like that, we were in a new world—this suburban paradise. I’d always assumed Mom’s ex had given her the money. Just before we moved, she’d had a brief month-long relationship with a rich kingpin-type guy, Michael Rod Camper. I get the sense this type of cash is nothing to him.

With his dark hair, his strong jaw, those sharp blue eyes, and that smirk on his lips when he glanced my way as if he liked what he saw… No, I can’t think about him, either. Although, I might have to call him. The cops were reluctant to register my mom as a missing person. Mom had a girls’ trip to Vegas but was supposed to return the day before last. They probably assumed she was on a bender. This note would change their mind, but what if the kidnappers somehow find out?

I stand and grit my teeth. I have to know if Michael’s the one who gave Mom the cash for us to live here. My skin shivers just thinking about him, which is distracting and not what I should be doing.

I remember walking into the warehouse, the man laughing at me when I asked for a job and giving me one almost as a joke. Then, the look in his eyes months later when I worked hard and never missed a shift. Not that I liked the work, but I proved myself.

I don’t know who’s taken my mom. I don’t know what they mean by my dad's wallet, but I’ve got a theory. If Jamie didn’t pay for this place, then something to do with dad's wallet id, whatever that ultimately means. That’s why people do things. I learned that the first time somebody broke into our house and took my battered old MP3 player. People are driven by money.

Walking into the foyer, I flip through Mom’s address book. She was weirdly proud when she bought this chic table and the leather-bound address book, though she had a cell and had never used an address book before. It was just nice to see her smile. When she told me a barefaced lie about some distant uncle leaving her the money—she actually said this—I turned off the critical part of my mind. I just accepted it to see her smile. Maybe that was a mistake.

When I find Michael’s number, a tight feeling grips me. I almost feel my legs getting weak. It was so hard not to stare at him the few times he and Mom were around the

house together or when he came to pick her up in that ominous black car with the tinted windows.

He was always wearing a sharp suit, his dark hair combed back, old-fashioned, with streaks of silver in it. He had an expensive, shiny watch on his wrist, wearing it casually as he leaned against the car as if nothing mattered. I wanted to run out there and touch the top of his chest, where he’d left a couple of buttons undone.

But nope. My hands are shaking. I’m sitting on the bottom step, I realize. I’ve stumbled over here. Dammit, this is stupid. I’m on the verge of tears. Mom’s missing, and here I am, thinking about her ex.

I take a few moments to gather myself, breathing slowly. Returning to the book, I pick it up, typing Michael’s number into my cell. I don’t presscall right away. I’m terrified I will say something I don’t mean to. We never spoke much, literally just hi and hello.

No, it’s time to get it together. Mom could be anywhere, held by anyone. I need to check this clue off the list.