Page 35 of North

And that’s when James moved.

One moment he stood beside her, the next he’d closed the distance to Mr. Hendrickson.

Frank took a step back and fired.

The shot went wide, shattered the glass on the front door.

Miriam screamed and grabbed her grandchildren.

James stopped, hands up as Frank breathed hard.

“I missed on purpose,” he said. “I won’t the next time, I promise. Back. Off.”

James stood two feet from the gun, as if contemplating the opposite.

“Don’t!” Selah stepped between them, her heart thundering louder than the storm. “James, please.”

Something dark flickered in James’s eyes. And it stirred up a deep, unspoken terror—the kind she hadn’t felt since Mariposa.

James was a dangerous man. Or at least he could be—to Frank. To her? Maybe not.

She turned to Frank. “Listen, we’ll go. We’ll just go.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Frank gestured with the shotgun. “You two can wait in the bedroom for the sheriff.”

Amy looked at Selah, her face wet with tears.

“It’s okay,” Selah said softly. “I promise.”

They were herded into what had to be Frank and Miriam’s bedroom—flowered wallpaper, a handmade quilt on the bed, family photos on the bureau. Younger versions of Sarah and Grant, of Tommy and Amy.

James walked in and stood by the window, painfully still, watching the rain.

Hendrickson closed the door.

“What’s going on, James? Did you⁠—”

“Of course not.” He didn’t shout it, didn’t act outraged. Just a simple, solemn statement. “The old man is just upset.”

“He looks more than upset. He would have shot you.”

And yet, James had barely flinched…

She stepped up to him and kept her voice soft, not accusatory. “What do you think happened to Butch Anderson?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I was asleep in the room next door to you all night.”

He was, wasn’t he? Right. She let out a breath.

Outside, at the side window, rain traced down the glass.

James reached up, undid the lock. “We’re leaving. Now.”

Clearly, Frank hadn’t thought all the way through his plans for imprisonment.

Except, out the front window, through curtains of rain, she saw Frank crossing the muddy yard toward the truck, shotgun cradled against his chest.

“What’s he doing?”