Back in the car and headed for Albuquerque, Alyssa said, ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m of the opinion that Alexandra Greene has just moved her way up to the number one spot on my list of suspects.’

‘One hundred percent with you,’ Cord agreed.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Tuesday, October 8

The exploding fragments of her perfect plan sent Alex into a frenzy of crazed destruction. She couldn’t believe that after all she’d done for Adam, he’d gone and changed the locks to his house, which meant he probably suspected he would never make it to the NFL because dead people couldn’t play football.

A disappointment, really, considering all she’d done to ensure his success in that department. At seventeen, when he’d been distraught over the possibility that his high school rival was getting more traction and attention from the college scouts, she’d sliced the guy’s brake lines and forced him off the road, effectively ending his football career before it could get off the ground. Because it wasn’t only dead guys who couldn’t play in the NFL; neither could those who were paralyzed from the waist down.

And what about the sixteen-year-old kid who’d heckled him mercilessly online after Adam had fumbled the ball that resulted in his team losing the state championship? For days, Adam had fallen into a deep depression about it. A week later, when that kid was found face-down in the river with his throat slit and his tongue removed, Adam had come to her, demanding to know if she was responsible. She’d smiled and shrugged, and though he insisted he was angry, that he’d never wanted that, it hadn’t taken long for him to pull out of his funk.

Hell, she’d even snapped the neck of his ex-girlfriend’s cat after it had scratched him and caused such an awful infection, he hadn’t been able to play the sport he loved for two weeks.

After all that, he had the audacity to try to lock her out, to choose the lives of two stupid, insipid teenagers over her? That treachery alone was worthy of his death.

But that would have to wait because he hadn’t returned home last night, and so she’d been forced to head up to the mountains herself to track Addis Kensington and Emerson Childress. She knew they were still out there because if they’d somehow miraculously found their way to safety, it would’ve been all over the news. So, they’d either been killed by the wildlife or they were still stumbling around hoping for a savior to come along and rescue them. And didn’t she look like a savior?