Silas: I’m coming. Are you hurt? Are you with her?
My Girl: We’re okay.
Silas: I'm freaking the hell out, Kates. Gonna need more than that.
My Girl: Aubs was a rockstar and stayed hidden. I didn't let him inside.
Silas: Love my girls.
My Girl: Get home soon, 32.
We’re still several hours out, but she doesn’t need the number. What she needs is proof that even from states away, I’m already on my way home. I’m betting Rooks will break a few traffic laws to get us home faster anyway.
“Do you want me to call Noah?” Rooker asks.
“Yeah.” My voice is gravel, and I’m thankful he’s taking the reins here.
While Rooks makes the calls, I stare at the blue glow of my phone like I can force another text to appear. Nothing from the unknown number. Nohey, son, no come and stop me. He won’t say it. He’ll lurk and he’ll test and he’ll try to make me feel like the one who screwed up.
I grip the handle above the window and breathe until my knuckles stop shaking. The radio’s off. The truck hums. The wipers keep time. Still, I can’t stay grounded.
“Talk to me about the house,” Rooks says, like he can sense the way my thoughts are spiraling. “Cameras set. Sensors up. We synced the front lights last week.”
“And I changed the code Tuesday.” I swallow. “He knew I was gone. Knew we were in Charleston. He’s watching the team’s feed.”
“Then we starve him. No more public schedules, no real-time posts of you. We lock it down.”
I’m mad at myself for leaving, at my father for getting so damn close to taking what’s most precious to me. At the way fear makes a liar out of every promise you ever wanted to keep.
I picture Aubrey’s door half-open at night, the glow from her unicorn lamp. I picture Oakley Kate sitting on the floor across from it, back to the wall, boot propped on a pillow, whispering into the dark like she could bar a wolf out with words.
Hold, I tell myself. Hold until you can put your hands on both of them. Everything else is noise.
When we crest the last hill before our street, I spot it: a cruiser parked at the curb, lights off now but presence loud enough to quiet the neighborhood. Even that little bit helps soothe the panic. Not enough, but some.
Rooks barely has time to put the truck in park before I’m out the door. The air is cold enough that it shaves a layer off my lungs, and the smell of wet leaves knocks me sideways with a memory of being nine and waiting on the porch for a mom who didn’t come home on time.
Not now. Not here.
An officer with an uncanny resemblance to Thorn Cason is on the porch steps with his hands in his jacket pockets, posture loose in a way that’s meant to tell me I can breathe.
“Where is he?” I hear myself ask, voice low.
“Gone.” His jaw flexes like the word tastes bad. “Units canvassed, but he was smart. No plates on the truck. No cameras on the side street yet.”
“Yet?”
“Sheriff’s ordering more.” He nods toward the door. “Reid Cason,” he says as he offers his hand.
Something in my chest gives at that. “How are they?”
His mouth softens. “Oakley was…solid. Better than most would’ve been.”
Of course, she was. She always is.
“Let me see them,” I say.
He steps aside. “Go.”
