Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
I expect that she’ll bombard me with questions, but thankfully, I’m adept at thinking strategically and able to make quick decisions under pressure. Whatever she throws at me, I’ll be able to come up with a response to it.
I decide to leave a series of clues to guide Elle to the location. That way, there’s no message or paper trail, and no in-person meeting in public that could fall into the wrong hands or be watched by others. Elle is smart enough to follow the clues I set, and unless she proves me wrong this time, she’s brave enough to follow them too. If she wants answers that badly, bad enough to spend years trying to sniff them out, then she’ll come. And when she does, I’ll be ready with at least a few portions of the truth to satiate her appetite and hopefully keep things from escalating to where she puts herself in danger or compromises my movements throughout the city. I’ll give her the hook and see if she bites.
Of course, while I go about setting up this little plan of mine, I forget about the one thing that I probably should have thought about a bit more. What if she’s not the only one walking into the little trap I’m setting for her to settle this game of evasion that we’re both playing? What if I’m leading myself into a trap, too? I usually like to think that I’m the cleverest person in the room, but I might have met my match with Elle Monroe, and my convoluted feelings about her might blind me. I guess I’m about to find out.
CHAPTER 9
ELLE
I’m thinking that this is all some kind of twisted game that Nico Vitale is playing with me. First, he disappears from the alleyway after mysteriously saving my life but not my mother’s. Then, he pulls me into another side street just a few days ago with no other purpose than to get me to back down from chasing the answers I seek. And now, there’s this—clues left in random places throughout the Vegas Strip for me to find as if he and I are playing a silly game. Except that the rules in this game are ever-changing, and the consequences of playing it might prove deadly.
The first clue that I see is a note slid under my apartment door. It’s a tiny slip of paper, so small that I almost missed it. Fortunately, my eyes don’t miss much of anything. The note has a single word scribbled on it—meet.
I stare at it for a few seconds, wondering if it’s supposed to be some sort of invitation. If it is, then it’s missing all the pertinent information, like where, when, and who it is that I’d be meeting. Although I already know that the note is from Nico. Call it a sixth sense, but I feel uncannily connected to the Ghost, despite how much I fucking hate him for not saving my mom.
Two days have gone by since that first clue before I find another. The Ghost either enjoys making me wait, or he’s trying to buy himself more time—for what, I have no idea. I have to hand it to him, though, because the second clue is impressively done. Just as I reach for my latte on the barista counter of my favorite coffee shop on my way to do some more sleuthing around, the barista motions to a second drink next to mine.
“Oh, that one’s yours too,” she smiles.
“I only ordered one drink,” I say, confused.
“Yeah, but some handsome man paid for this one for you, too,” she says with a grin as she looks around the café, hoping to point him out. She obviously doesn’t know who she’s dealing with, because the Ghost can’t be found when he doesn’t want to be. “I’m not sure where he went,” she says with a wrinkled brow. “But anyway, the drink is yours. Enjoy.”
I thank her and take my two cups to a window seat and sit down. When I pop the lid off the second drink, there’s a tiny image drawn with sprinkled sugar on top of the latte foam. Clever. He must have just done this because it doesn’t take long for the sugar to sink. The fading image is a simplistic little desert scene, complete with a scorching sun and a single cactus. Who knew that the Ghost was an artist too? I chuckle to myself and then drink the latte. It’s delicious.
Meet him in the desert? Is that what the Ghost’s cryptic clues are trying to say? I guess he wants to be sure that I can’t actually trace any of this back to him—smart. But the desert outside of the city doesn’t exactly come with a roadmap, so I do not know how to find him or when to find him—until I receive the next and final clue. The last one is the boldest by far.