A muscle jumped in her cheek. “When I left King Enterprises, I took what I could to protect you. That hasn’t changed.”
The room shrank around me. The lemon cleaner on the counters burned my nose. Sun found the metal rim of the trash can and turned one jagged shard into a mean little star.
“Protect me from who?” My voice roughened. “From Dunn? From the Kings?”
Her shoulders tightened at the names. “From anyone who thought you were an easy pressure point.”
My mind flashed to Elise on the edge of Tori’s living room—red lipstick and hunger in her eyes, the way she’d watched Avery crumble. The hissed phone call I’d overheard after school months ago:“I’m trying! He’s chasing her—what do you want me to do, drug him?”Back then, the target had seemed to be Luke—or I’d thought it had. Yesterday, Elise had chosen the closest wound, and it had harmed us.
“Was that Darren’s drive?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
Her hand stilled on the faucet, but she didn’t turn it off. Water ran and ran, drilling the basin. The sound filled the space between us.
“His name is in a lot of places,” she answered at last—not yes, not no. “And names get people killed.”
“It’s already gotten people hurt,” I pressed, pulse climbing. “There were deposits into his account from Dunn. Before he disappeared. We saw them—Luke showed me. If that drive had anything tied to that?—”
“Then it shouldn’t be here,” she cut in, sharper than she’d meant to. She shut the water off and turned, finally meeting my eyes. “Do you understand me? It should not be in this house.”
“Because Dunn would come for it?”
“Because everyone would.” She stepped closer, fingers damp. “You think King doesn’t have people who would turn this placeinside out? You think Dunn doesn’t already have a way to get in?”
The floor might as well have tilted. My back hit the doorframe. “Did you double-cross them?” The question tasted metallic in my mouth. “Did you double-cross the Kings?”
Her mouth parted—offended and wounded at once. “I protected us.”
“That isn’t a no.”
“It’s the only answer that matters.”
I stared at the trash. The black grit of plastic looked harmless there, almost ordinary. Something a child could pluck out by accident. Something to empty without noticing.
My voice slipped low. “Who was Mr. Langley?”
Mom’s face didn’t move—only her eyes. “Darren? You knew him.”
“No.Mr. Langley.”
A slightest flicker—as if tracking a memory she’d buried deep. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Elise,” I forced out. “On the phone—she used it when she thought she was alone.”
Careful as threading a needle, she said, “You need to leave that alone.”
“Was it Darren’s?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Mom.”
The word shook something in her. She pressed her fingers to her mouth then dropped them. “The more you stay out of things, the safer you are. Do you hear me?”
Safe felt as if it belonged in a children’s book—pretty, useless. “You smashed evidence in our kitchen.”
“I smashed bait,” she corrected, backing away from the counter as if the trash could jump up and implicate her. “You aren’t the only one people try to corner.”
Her hands shook. She tucked them into the pockets of her robe to hide it, but I saw—I always saw. The tremor ran through me, too.
