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directional signs that would take him longer to reach the exit, he was overcome with the uneasy feeling that he’d been outmaneuvered. The cops should have been right behind him. Liam should have seen them when he was backing out of his parking spot. He should have heard them on the stairwell. But he hadn’t, and when he reached the exit, he found out why.

Liam Parker

Standing behind the mechanical arm that separated the parking lot from Michigan Avenue, the two officers drew their guns. Liam slowed to a stop.

“Get out of the car, Mr. Parker! Get out of the car, now!”

Liam licked his lips and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He squinted in the sunlight that reflected off the Bank of America across the street. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go but through that gate. He was either doing it on foot with the cops or alone in his car.

One of the officers stepped forward. “Mr. Parker!”

When Liam had decided to run, he’d imagined an easy escape and a hero’s welcome after he showed the police who the real killer was. The first part of that fantasy had already been blown to hell. The second part might be also, if he kept running. Because the only way to keep running would be to slam his foot down on the gas and trust those two cops to get out of the way.

He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. There was really only one choice, wasn’t there?

In case the cops didn’t move fast enough, Liam tapped the brakes as the mechanical arm splintered. They dove safely into the bushes that flanked the exit and Liam careened onto the road. Drivers honked, slammed on their brakes. He slowed at the red light in front of him, but didn’t stop. There was a gap in the crossing traffic. He seized it, and turned right, heading for Lakeshore Drive.

While Liam figured the police would put out an APB for his car, he wanted to put some distance between himself and the scene before dumping it.

The city was dirtier and uglier on the west side of Chicago than it was along the river. Liam pulled into a cracked parking lot that was shared by CVS and Petco. The frigid air had blown discarded shopping bags, candy wrappers, paper cups, napkins, and other trash up against the fence surrounding it. A sign at the entrance said spots were reserved for shoppers only. “ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED,” it announced in big red letters.

That was going to include Liam’s Tesla sooner or later. It had been thirty-eight minutes since he’d left his office. As much as he didn’t want to leave his car there, he couldn’t risk holding onto it any longer.

Liam withdrew a few hundred dollars out of the ATM. His phone chirped an alert. He pulled it out of his pocket to take a look. He had a voicemail from David and a text message from a number he didn’t know. Liam didn’t have to listen to the voicemail to know it had something to do with Bash showing up at ConnectPlus.

The text message read: U need to disappear. Call me. I can help.

Liam looked at it for several seconds, trying to figure out who might have sent it, when his phone rang. The number calling him was the same one from which the text had come. This wasn’t right. He needed to disappear, but who would be calling him offering help? It smelled wrong. Liam turned off his phone and put it in his glovebox. He wasn’t sure the police could trace the phone’s location if it was off, but holding onto it seemed like too big of a risk.

He went into the CVS and asked where he could find a hotel. The cashier told him there was a Comfort Inn six blocks away.

But the Comfort Inn wanted an ID and a credit card on file. Since Liam planned to check in under an assumed name, he walked to two more hotels—both names he didn’t know. While one called Holiday Home didn’t care to keep a credit card on file, they both wanted IDs. Going with the lesser of two evils, he checked into Holiday Home. At least it mitigated his risk. The clerk gave him the key to a room on the second floor and told him the elevator was out.

The room overlooked an alley where a homeless man slept, bundled up in blankets and leaning against the side of a dumpster. There was peeling paisley wallpaper along the edge of the ceiling and an unidentifiable stain on the carpet Liam made sure to step around.

He sat down on the corner of the bed, reluctant to touch even that much of it. The room was unusually hot. He undid the top button on his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. For the first time since he’d decided to run, Liam had a chance to think. If he was going to find Elise’s killer, he’d have to start with what he knew, and what he knew was this: Elise had run away from home. Before that, she’d been hanging with a bad crowd. Something had happened that caused her to change her name. Patricia Harrison was probably right—Elise had probably done it to leave her past behind. So far, everything tracked.

What about the text messages though? Why were those deleted? And why did she lie about her job and where she grew up?

Liam still couldn’t answer those questions, so he decided not to dwell on them. He had to focus on the pieces that made sense for now.

He thought some more about why Elise had changed her last name. Since she hadn’t done it legally, she wasn’t hiding from the possession or prostitution charges. Those would show up on any criminal background check. That meant she wasn’t necessarily hiding something about her past but hiding from something in it.

Perhaps someone.

He needed to talk to Elise’s sister. He had to