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established—I know everything.”
    It felt good to scoff at him, even as a small part of me wondered what kind of access he had to private information. Money talks, and with a few well-placed bills and a smile, he could probably gain access to nuclear launch codes.
    He had tracked me to the police station.
    That much I did know. I forced myself to take a moment and break down the components of our conversation into easily digested chunks. Sebastian had tracked me down. He wanted something from me. He thought
I
had a secret agenda, probably because he had one of his own.
    I shook my head and tried to make it even simpler.
    Sebastian St. James had the funds to make nearly any problem solvable and there was a mystery in my life that no police officers would eagerly agree to help me answer. The Case of the Absentee Dad. My pulse began speeding up. According to my mom, they had met and fallen in love when she was playing the small, but critical, role of Waitress #3 on a big-budget action movie in Los Angeles. He had been everything she’d always looked for in a man. Funny, warm-hearted, with a genuine smile that made her knees go weak. He left supportive little notes on napkins next to the coffeepot each morning. Held her in his arms as she fell asleep each night. My mom’s eyes tended to go dreamy when she reached that part of the story. For three blissful months they’d been inseparable—right up until the day she’d woken up to find him gone. No note. No explanation. After two weeks of waiting for him to return, she took a pregnancy test that put everything in perspective real fast.
    My mom liked to say that she left Hollywood with the only Emmy that truly mattered.
    That my dad would always be the one that got away.
    The man that my mom described became my ultimate fantasy father. Endearingly nervous about meeting me for the first time and full of regret for all the years that he’d already missed, I pictured him standing at the steps of my school with an enormous bouquet of flowers and an explanation for everything. It was easy to imagine because I’d always known it was pure fantasy. That I would never be able to find him on my own.
    Morgan will know what to do, always was better with the details. And they’re coming, girl. I’d stake my life on it.
    Ben would tell me to hand in the Slate and be done with the whole thing. To do my civic duty and get the hell out. To accept whichever deal the police offered that would keep me the safest.
    Except if the dead man was right and my father—my actual biological
dad
—was in danger and his Slate could help me track him down? I wasn’t sure I could walk away from that possibility without regretting it for the rest of my life. If he was even half as wonderful as my mom claimed, then maybe he really could keep her happy. Maybe he’d be able to prevent the headlong collision course she appeared to be on with every lowlife creep within a fifteen-mile radius.
    “What if I change my mind?” I shoved back the wisps of auburn hair that had slipped free from my ponytail because I needed to do something with my hands. If I didn’t keep them in motion Sebastian might notice that they were still trembling slightly. “What if I get to Empty Academy and decide that I want out?”
    Sebastian laughed the low chuckle of someone assured of their own victory.
    “You’d be the first.”
    It looked like I’d be setting all sorts of new precedents, because I had no intention of settling in, staying put, or sticking around. I just needed to buy myself a little more alone time with the Slate.
    So I met his stormy blue eyes straight on and hoped that he couldn’t tell I was bluffing.
    “I’m in.”

Chapter 6
    Sebastian didn’t stick around to watch my mom make her big entrance. Instead, he pressed a business card into my palm and left without so much as pausing to say goodbye or good luck or whatever it was you should say to someone when they are stuck sitting in a police precinct