Bad Blood
Page 49

“Hold up,” Lia said.
Sloane stayed where she was, but didn’t turn back to face us. “That’s what you were doing. Talking to Cassie. Because Cassie’s easy to talk to. She understands, and I don’t.” A breath caught in Sloane’s throat. “I just blurt out stupid statistics. I get in the way.”
“That’s not true.” Lia stalked toward Sloane. “I know I said it, Sloane, but I was lying.”
“No. You weren’t. If Cassie or Dean or Michael had been the one to catch you leaving, you wouldn’t have said it. You wouldn’t have meant it, because Cassie and Dean and Michael could go with you and lie and keep secrets and not say exactly the wrong things at exactly the wrong times.” Sloane turned to face us. “But I can’t. I would have been in the way.”
Sloane was different from the rest of us. That was easy for me to forget—and impossible for Sloane to.
“So?” Lia retorted.
Sloane blinked several times.
“You can’t lie worth a damn, Sloane. That doesn’t mean you matter any less.” Lia stared at Sloane for a few seconds, then seemed to come to a decision. “I’m going to tell you something,” she said. “You, Sloane. Not Cassie. Not Michael. Not Dean. You know the Salem witch trials?”
“Twenty people were executed between 1692 and 1693,” Sloane said. “An additional seven died in prison, including at least one child.”
“The girls who started the whole thing off with their accusations?” Lia took another step toward Sloane. “That was me. The cult I grew up in? The leader claimed to have visions. Eventually, I started playing his game. I started having ‘visions,’ too. And I told everyone that my visions showed me that he was right, that he was just, that God wanted us to obey him. I built myself up by building him up. He believed me. And when he came into my room one night…” Lia’s voice was shaking. “He told me that I was special. He sat on the end of my bed, and as he leaned over me, I started screaming and thrashing. I couldn’t let him touch me, so I lied. I said that I’d had a vision, that there was a betrayer in our midst.” She closed her eyes. “I said the betrayer had to die.”
I killed a man when I was nine years old, Lia had told us months ago.
“If I had to choose between being like you and being like me,” Lia continued, holding Sloane’s gaze, “I’d want to be like you.” Lia tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Besides,” she said, shedding the intensity she’d borne a moment ago like a snake wriggling out of its skin, “if you were like Cassie and Michael and Dean and me, you wouldn’t be able to do anything with this.”
Lia reached into her back pocket and pulled out several folded pieces of paper. I wanted to see what was on them, but was still paralyzed by the words Lia had spoken.
“A map?” Sloane said, thumbing through the pages.
“A layout,” Lia corrected. “Of the entire compound—the house, the barns, the acreage, drawn to scale.”
Sloane wrapped her arms around Lia in what appeared to be the world’s tightest hug.
“‘Drawn to scale,’” Sloane whispered, just loud enough that I could hear her, “are three of my favorite words.”
 
 
By the time the others woke up the next morning, Sloane had developed a complete blueprint of the Serenity Ranch compound.
Agent Sterling helped herself to a cup of coffee, then turned to Lia. “Pull a stunt like that again and you’re out. Out of the program. Out of the house.”
Not a threat. Not a warning. A promise.
Lia didn’t bat an eye, but when Judd cleared his throat and she turned to face him, she actually winced.
“I can keep the FBI from treating you like you’re disposable,” Judd told Lia, his voice even and low. “But I can’t make you value yourself.” Next to Dean, Judd had been the one constant in Lia’s life since she was thirteen years old. “I can’t force you not to take chances with your own life. But you didn’t see me after my daughter died, Lia. If something happens to you? If I go to that place again? I can’t promise I’m coming back.”
Lia found it easier to be the recipient of anger than affection. Judd knew that, just like he knew she’d read the truth in every word.
“Okay,” Lia said, holding up her hands and stepping back. “I’m a bad, bad girl. Point taken. Can we focus on what Sloane has to say?”
Dean appeared in the doorway and registered Lia’s presence. “You’re okay.”
“More or less.” Lia’s reply was flippant, but she took a step toward him. “Dean—”
“No,” Dean said.
No, you don’t want to hear it? No, she doesn’t get to do this to you?
Dean didn’t elaborate.
“Thank goodness you’re home, Lia.” Michael strolled into the room. “Dean is awfully prone to talking about feelings when you’re MIA.”
“Would this be an inappropriate time to say ‘aha’?” Sloane interjected from the floor. “Because aha!”
If Sloane had been even the least bit capable of guile, I would have thought she’d come to Lia’s rescue on purpose.
“What did you find?” I asked, earning a look from Dean that said he knew quite well that I was capable of throwing Lia a lifeline.
“I started with Lia’s drawings and compared them to satellite photographs of the Serenity Ranch compound.” Sloane stood, bouncing to the tips of her toes and walking the perimeter of the diagram she’d laid out on the floor. “Everything lined up, except…” Sloane knelt to point a finger at one of the smaller buildings on her diagram. “This structure is roughly seven-point-six percent smaller on the inside than it should be.”
“That’s the chapel.” Lia tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. “No specific religious ties, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at it.”
I could hear Melody’s monotone in my memory. In Serenity, I’ve found balance. In Serenity, I’ve found peace.
I turned my attention back to Sloane. “What does it mean that the building is smaller on the inside than it should be?”
“It means that either the walls are abnormally thick…” Sloane caught her bottom lip in her teeth, then let it go. “Or there’s a hidden room.”