“Are you coming?” Harper asked, startling me. She’d opened the door just enough to poke her head inside.
“Get your socks?”
“Fuzzy ones,” she replied.
“Harp—”
Swinging the door open the rest of the way, she padded toward me. Reaching up with both hands, she cupped my face as she rose onto her toes.
“A lot of shit happened last night,” she said softly, looking into my eyes. “And we need to unpack it all. But me and you? We’re just as solid as we were yesterday morning, okay?”
“I shoulda told you—”
“Yeah, you should have.” She flicked my septum ring with her thumb. “But you didn’t. I know now. We’ll go from here.”
Turning my head, I kissed the center of her palm. Then I followed her out of the room.
Leo and Gray were sitting at a table drinking coffee when we found them. They looked Harper over as she strode toward them, and her dad’s mouth curled up proudly.
“Who was that guy?” Harper asked as she dropped into a chair across from them.
“He had a few different aliases,” Gray answered immediately. “Miller Thomas. Thomas Miller. Frank Miller. Miller Franks. You get the picture.”
“So, you still don’t know,” she said with a sigh as I sat down beside her. “I had a feeling, but I was really hoping I’d wake up and we’d know everything.”
“Hold up,” Gray said, raising his hand. “Doesn’t matter what his name is.Weknow plenty.”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s been operating in the Pacific Northwest for years. Got a long sheet of suspected hits, but nothing could be outwardly traced to him because seventy-five percent of them looked like accidents. That was his thing. Car accidents, accidental overdoses, carbon monoxide poisoning, falls down stairs, that type of deal.”
“So, the three car incidents were on purpose,” Harper said in understanding.
My head shot sideways to look at her. “What do you mean, three?”
Leo and Gray leaned up in their chairs.
“The steering thing,” she said, frowning. “Then the time that truck swerved into my lane, and then when I got rear-ended.”
“A truck swung into your lane?” her dad asked.
“Yeah.” She looked between us. “I just figured he was on his phone or something. I was driving Mom’s car, and I pulled off into the gravel. The traction control kicked in, and I was able to pull right back on the road.”
“You didn’t think it would be important to mention that?” Leo’s voice was deceptively calm.
“Why would I?” Harper countered. “It was just one of those things. It’s happened to all of us. That’s why you have to pay attention when you’re driving. People are idiots.”
“Threetimes,” Gray muttered.
“Well, four if you count last night,” Harper mused.
A vein in Leo’s temple was throbbing, and I wondered if she knew how close he was to exploding.
“Three times,” Gray said again. “He lost patience. Decided to finish it in a way that would work.”
“It wouldn’t have looked like an accident,” I pointed out.
“People shoot someone they love and then themselves all the time,” Gray said darkly. “He got past the security system and into the house without a trace. Without evidence something else was happening, no one would’ve even known he was there.”
