“Yeah.” “Got it. I’ll do it immediately, so don’t panic.”
After hanging up the phone, I picked up my bag. “You’re heading out?” asked John.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, I mean— it would be better to wait for updates from them instead of going about and looking aimlessly for new leads.”
“Aimlessly?” I shot back.
Probably thinking that I was acting too hostile to provoke any further, he shut up and threw his hands up in surrender.
I left the hotel without another word, and Emery texted me several addresses in W City where she thought Kristina might be.
I wasn’t familiar with the city at all, so I had no choice but to hail a taxi and go to each address one by one.
After visiting each location, Jared called, telling me to visit the suburbs we’d went to yesterday.
It started raining again while on the drive there, the taxi slowing to a stop by the roadside with seemingly no one around for miles.
“Miss, are you sure that this is where your friend told you to go? It’s way too desolate out here! Maybe you should give them a call and double-check the address,” the driver suggested kindly.
My attention turned to what seemed like an abandoned factory a short distance away from where the car had stopped. Hesitating, I told the driver, “Could you wait for a moment while I make a phone call?”
I pulled out my phone and dialled Jared’s number.
“Where are you, Scarlett?”
“I’ve arrived. Why did you ask me to come here?”
“Come on in. I’ve found Summer…”
“If you did find her, then why didn’t you bring her home?”
Silence.
And then, “You could also choose to not come over, Scarlett.”
“What are you trying to do, Jared?” My eyebrows knitted together. “Summer is your biological daughter.”
A cold laugh rang out through the phone, and he reiterated, “If you choose to not come over, I can’t guarantee if you’ll ever get to see her again.”
A threat.
What kind of person is Jared, exactly? Even after so many years, I can’t tell if he’s a good or bad person.
Never mind, that’s stupid. People’s moralities weren’t black and white.
Whatever.
I paid the fare and got out of the car, but the driver was still worried for my safety. “This doesn’t seem safe, miss!”
Nodding in acknowledgment, I opened up my umbrella. “Help me lodge a police report on your way back.” In response, the driver gave me a perplexed look before driving away.
I had no idea what Jared might have in store for me.
The muddy path that I followed to the factory was littered with footsteps of varying sizes and depths.
The building itself was quite large, but I didn’t feel scared because I’d been here once before.
As soon as I stepped foot within the factory, I spotted Jared standing alone.
“I didn’t think you had the balls to come,” he mocked.
What goes on inside his head? What does he think of Ashton?
“Are you going to kill me?” I stared at him, less fearful than I thought I’d be. If anything, I was curious and morbidly confused.
He sat down in a rotting old chair, leaning back and crossing one leg over another in a casual manner. “You’re not scared?”
“Am I supposed to be?”
Jared raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to ask about Summer?”
“Okay. Where’s Summer?”
Perhaps bored by my simple question, he rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you going to ask me ‘why’?”
“Why?”
“God. What does Ashton see in you?” He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
I pursed my lips and didn’t answer.
If I die today, what are the chances that someone will stumble across my corpse here?
How long would it take for someone to find out that I had died in the first place?
He ignored me and played with his phone as I looked around the place. “Summer is safe; Kristina merely brought her to another location. Don’t worry,” he drawled.
“You’re good at acting,” I commented.
I’d been genuinely convinced that Summer had gone missing when I met him.
Jared raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Thanks. If I wasn’t, then you wouldn’t have believed me, no?”
Summer was his biological child. There was no way he would let her be in mortal danger.
I decided that I might as well wait to see what he planned on doing.
After a long pause, he brought up, “Remember when she jumped from a tall building and scarred her face? Want to try and imitate that?”
Who is this “she” that he speaks of?
Seeing that I wasn’t budging an inch, he pointed to what looked like an infusion bottle on top of a broken table. “Go on.”
I looked at the bottle, and then back at him. “Is that sulfuric acid?”
He nodded calmly. “It might hurt a little, but you’ll get over it.”
