Chapter Sixteen - Lincoln
“Dancing with her, Case? Really? What are you trying to do, undo fifteen fucking years of luck in the span of three minutes?”
“Hey, relax. I was just trying to feel her out. See how much she knows.”
I lean to the side a little and give her a quick check. “Fuck, she’s coming.”
“Just play it cool, man. And call me tonight and tell me how it goes.”
“Right,” I say, as Case chuckles. “Asshole.” We’re in a lot of trouble. I can feel it. All the shit I’ve been pushing away is about to knock me back on my ass.
I turn and rub my temple as I head out the back door, willing the headache that’s building to go away. There’s no way out from the garden. I know this place better than Thomas. I was the one who designed it back when we were still in school. I didn’t know what they were gonna use it for until it was too late.
I think that was the moment I turned. Walking back through the quad after finals. The maze was supposed to be used for animals. A test, that’s what they told me. For animals, they said. But they ran us through the maze. We were the animals. More than a dozen went in and only three came out.
Me, Thomas, and Case in that order.
Thomas brushed past my shoulder as we walked through the Prodigy School doors, damaged even more at the end than we were going in, trying our best to pretend that shit didn’t just happen.
“It was a good design,” he said. “And hey, you knew it better than the rest of us. So good job on being first. But brothers don’t let brothers die in the maze, Lincoln. A little heads-up next time, eh?”
It was the first time he ever called me Lincoln and it changed everything for me.
How he got his hands on those old plans, I have no idea. I don’t really care either, I’m just glad he did. Because the only way to stop a public scene now is to get Molly Masters inside the hedge maze where we can at least have some privacy. Not many people want to wander around a dark maze at night.
I duck in through the opening in the hedges, then check behind me, and yeah, sure enough, her feet are flying down the stone steps. She’s looking everywhere for me.
How much does she remember? I guess I’ll start there first. It’s possible she’s just getting little hints. And maybe my face triggered a memory, or maybe she just knows she recognizes me and can’t place it. Either way, I’ve got her attention.
That makes me smile a little more than I’d like to admit. Because… well, Sheila was right. I like her. I more than like her. I crave her.
Laughter pulls me out of my introspection and a few young couples go running by, probably thankful that they found the exit. There’s another exit on the far side, but once you make it to the middle most people don’t want to push their luck. They go out the same way they came in.
I walk up around a corner, then double back though a cut in the hedge to an alcove that has a window cut through, so I can watch the detective pass by.
The sound of soft footsteps on the large flat stones make me duck back into the darkness. A few seconds later, she walks past the window. Her eyes dart around. She looks right at me, but she’s unable to see past the shadows.
Can I turn her? It’s a good question. One Case and I discussed at length this week after I told him the whole story. He came by the cave earlier and watched the footage with Sheila and me, and then we pulled up the tracking map from the transponder I magnetically attached to the undercarriage of her work car.
She was at Blue Corp all week. Which, as Case pointed out, might be useful to us. If we can get her to cooperate. Everyone—I do mean everyone—knows why she was put on that Blue case and it wasn’t because they’re short-staffed.
It was because she’s new. She’s got no history. No context. No memory.
I wait until her footsteps fade and I walk to my left, deeper into the maze. It’s not the right path, and eventually it will dead-end on the far side of the garden after twisting and turning so much, a person unfamiliar with this puzzle might feel dizzy.
But it goes in the right direction and meets up with another side path that will take me back to the main one. So I continue. I hear her a few times. And she hears me too. Because she stops, like she’s listening.
I pause for several seconds and let her get ahead, and then, as silently as I can, weave my way through the heavily shadowed corridors until I’m back on the main path that takes you to the center. Thomas spared no expense building this place and rehabbing the cathedral. And I wonder why? Why spend all that money just to relive what we left behind? I’ve spent the past fifteen years trying to forget that place. Don’t get me wrong, I remember the important parts. The drugs. The doctors. The manipulation. The end.
But the maze? And the cathedral? No. That’s not shit I need to keep.
“I know you’re here,” Detective Masters says from a hedge or two away.
“Come find me,” I whisper back.
Her feet whirl on the stone path and she’s closer than I first thought. Sneaky thing, isn’t she?
“I remember you.”
“Yeah?” I ask, easing into another alcove. She’s gonna pass by me if she goes towards the center of the maze, so all I have to do is stay put now.
“It was raining.”
“It was snowing, gun girl.”
“And you crashed a bike in front of me.”
“I pushed you out a window.”
“What?” she asks. I walk forward a little, and then slip across the stone path and into another corridor where I make a turn that will bring me back towards her, but on another side of the hedge. “You drugged me.”
“You drugged yourself that night. I was just the supplier.”
She’s silent. And then, “I was with you last weekend, wasn’t I?”
“I thought you remembered?” I can hear her breathing, that’s how close she is. I can see bits and pieces of her cream-colored gown through small breaks in the hedge. “What do you think I did?”
“Took me home—”
“I sent you away, remember?”
She hesitates. So she doesn’t remember all of it.
“I didn’t have a party last Saturday.”
“You sound unsure. Like parties are your thing. Are you a party girl, Molly?”
She starts walking without answering.
“That’s the wrong way.”
“Why should I believe you?” She’s breathing hard now, like she’s scared. And she should be. Because she’s alone out here with me. She’s the last person on earth who should be alone with me.
“Because I have the maze memorized. I designed it. Many, many years ago.”
“Liar,” she whispers.
“Keep walking then,” I say, following her on the other side of the hedge. “You’ll come to a fork—”
“A fork in the road. You went left and he went right.”
“You ran one way and I ran the other.”
“There was a dirt road. And you were driving my brother’s truck.”
“You got a nice new brother out of that deal, eh? I should’ve never trusted him.”
“I don’t know what that even means, but…” She lets out a long sigh.
“Found the fork, did you?”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here for you. Why else would I bother to show my face?”
She stays silent for a few moments, and then I hear laughter from the start of the maze as more people enter. I wonder if she’ll scream?
I decide no when she stands her ground. She wants to talk. Wants answers. And she wants to follow my lead. She might not realize it yet, but she wants me to take over. Be alpha again. “Go left at the fork,” I say.
“Just like I did last weekend.”
“Just like that, gun girl.”
There’s a long silence after that, and then she draws in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “Bike boy,” she whispers.
“The one and only. Now do as I say and then we can talk.”
“What if I don’t want to talk? What if I want to arrest you for rape?”
“Rape?” I laugh. “Come on.”
“I woke up wearing lingerie.”
“What’s so bad about that?” I say, walking towards her voice. I have to go the other way to get to the middle, but I don’t think she’s ready to see me yet, so I stay close, but not too close.
“Girls don’t wear shit like that to bed when they’re sleeping alone.”
“Some girls do.”
“Not this girl. And this girl doesn’t drink.”
“Doesn’t drink anymore?”
“Right.”
“Hmmm,” I say. “But that lingerie was pretty. And you looked pretty wearing it.”
“You took my clothes off,” she growls.
“You were very muddy and wet. I needed to clean you up. So why not make you look pretty after?”
“You fucking pervert.” She’s breathing harder now and I start to get a little worried.
“We didn’t sleep together, if that’s what you’re worried about. You were stoned, man.”
“You’re the one who got me stoned.”
“I had to.”
“Why?” she demands. “Why—” And then the rest must come rushing back. Because she stops and stays silent for more than a minute. We stand there, just a few feet apart but separated by more than a tall hedge. We’re separated by fifteen years. By a night in the snow and an eternity of regrets. By choices that pulled us apart, and fate or bad luck that will bring us back together.
“Do you want to talk or not?” I finally ask, breaking the silence. “Because I have a secret to tell you.”
“I want to arrest you.”
“Meet me in the middle and see if you still feel the same way after.”
“I will. You’re not going to get away with what you did.”
“You can believe what you want, and I might be an asshole for last weekend. But it’s the things I did fifteen years ago that count. And I did keep you safe. I never raped you. And I never wanted to hurt you.”
“No? So coerced drugging isn’t hurting someone? What if I was allergic to that drug? What if I was—”
“You’re not.”
“Don’t interrupt me, asshole. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Go left,” I growl back. “Then take the first right, go past the second alcove, and then turn right again. I’ll meet you there.”