“The fire trucks.” Her tone drips venom. “For my class. For Fire Safety Week. They’re coming to the school, and if I’m not there… My kids have been looking forward to this since their first day back.”
This woman.
Standing in a fortified safe house. Denying any knowledge of diamonds worth millions. Dodging professional killers. And she’s worried about disappointing five-year-olds.
Because she’s more resilient than anyone I’ve ever met.
I can’t help the respect—or perhaps pride—surging in my chest.
I resist the impulse to smile. “I’m sure the school will find a suitable substitute to handle the program.”
“That’s not the point!” She’s shouting again, her face flushed with anger. “The point is you’ve ruined everything. My life, my job, my home…are all gone because of you.”
Enough.
Time to bring out the heavy artillery.
I reach into my pocket and withdraw the newspaper clipping I snatched from her mirror. The aged paper crinkles as I unfold it. “What is this? Why do you keep it?”
She stops shouting. Her attention fixates on the paper in my hand, recognition bleeding the color from her face.
The immediate transformation—fiery defiance to frozen terror in the space of a heartbeat—alarms me.
“Where did you get that?” Her voice cracks.
“It was in your house. Hidden in plain sight. Saw it when I was picking up.” I stalk closer, holding the article where she can clearly read the headline. “Why keep this, Chloe? Why keep a reminder of the worst day of your life?”
Her breathing quickens and becomes ragged. Her hand rises to her throat, her fingers splaying across her collarbone as if for purchase.
I’m familiar with the signs of an impending panic attack. The rapid respiration rate, the dilated pupils, the trembling hands.
I hadn’t expected the mere sight of the article to tear through her defenses so completely, but if I consider the fact that she was a child, and that it had to be very traumatic, this tracks.
“I…” Her voice fails. Her knees buckle, and she stumbles backward, catching herself on the arm of the sofa.
When she falls, my chest lurches. Not reaching for her requires Herculean effort. My muscles twitch with the urge to wrap my arms around her trembling shoulders.
A part of me—a part I ruthlessly despise—wants to stop pushing and allow her to recover. To shut this down, gather her into my arms, and pretend none of this is happening.
But I can’t afford that luxury. Not with what’s at stake. Not with armed men chasing us all over hell.
I follow her down, the article still extended toward her like a weapon. “You were there. You saw something important enough that people are willing to kill for it fifteen years later.”
She shakes her head, air now coming in short, desperate gasps. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, lift from the newspaper clipping to meet mine. At her raw, wounded gaze, my chest knots uncomfortably. “Were you there too?”
I frown. “No.”
She just needs to remember, to focus.
She sinks onto the sofa, revealing the terrified nine-year-old girl who witnessed horrors most adults couldn’t face.
I found the hammer to smash her soul’s oldest wound, and I used it without hesitation.
And she’s still not talking or giving me what I need.
The silence stretches between us, heavy and charged.
With her lifeless eyes locked in the middle distance, witnessing things I can’t see as she relives memories I can only guess at, she looks like a porcelain doll.
