Chapter 57
Chapter 57:
She put the phone away.
Back in the cafeteria, Seraphina was trembling.
“What did she say to you?” Jessica asked, wiping tomato sauce off her jeans.
“Nothing,” Seraphina snapped. Her voice was brittle. “She knows. She knows about the upload p>
“How?” Tiffany asked. “We used the library Wi-Fi. It’s anonymous p>
“Nothing is anonymous with her,” Seraphina whispered. Fear was beginning to coil in her gut, cold and slippery. “We need to get real dirt on her. The photoshopped stuff isn’t sticking. We need to find out where she really lives. Who is really paying for her p>
“Follow her?” Jessica asked.
“Tonight,” Seraphina ordered. “She leaves campus at six. Follow her. Find out whose bed she’s warming p>
The sun was setting over Sea City, painting the sky in bruises of purple and orange. Skye walked out of the library, her backpack slung over one shoulder. She knew they were there before she even saw them.
A silver sedan was idling across the street. Two heads were visible in the front seat. Jessica and Tiffany. They weren’t exactly subtle; Tiffany was holding her phone up, recording through the windshield.
Skye didn’t speed up. She didn’t run. She walked calmly toward the bus stop, waited for five minutes, and then, as if changing her mind, hailed a taxi.
She gave the driver an address. Not The Spire. That was too fortress-like. She gave him the address of The Azure Bay Residences—a hyper-exclusive gated community on the coast. It was a property her mother had left in a blind trust, one that had been tangled in legal red tape for years. Only yesterday had Alistair’s lawyers finally cleared the last lien, giving Skye a clean, traceable asset she could use as bait.
The taxi wove through traffic. Skye watched the silver sedan following three cars back.
“Take the scenic route,” Skye told the driver. “I’m in no rush p>
𝖱𝘦а𝘥 𝖿𝗋𝘰𝗆 yо𝗎𝗿 𝘱𝗁o𝗻𝖾 o𝘯 𝘣e𝘭ոo𝗏𝗲𝗹ѕ.𝘤o𝗆
Forty minutes later, the taxi pulled up to the massive wrought-iron gates of Azure Bay. This was old money territory. The kind of place where the grass was cut with scissors and the security guards were ex-special forces.
Skye paid the driver and stepped out. She walked toward the pedestrian gate, scanning her thumbprint on the biometric reader. The gate clicked open.
Behind her, the silver sedan screeched to a halt. Jessica and Tiffany jumped out. They looked around, eyes wide.
“No way,” Jessica whispered. “She lives here p>
“This is the most expensive zip code in the city,” Tiffany said, filming frantically. “Who is she seeing? Is it a Senator? A CEO p>
They ran toward the gate just as it was closing.
“Hey!” Jessica yelled. “Wait up p>
They tried to push through the narrowing gap.
WHEEE-OOP!
A siren blared, short and sharp. Two uniformed guards stepped out of the guardhouse. Their hands rested casually on their holsters.