“He’s fine, still asleep.”
“Then what—”
“Travis Parrish is dead.”
“What?”
“I killed him tonight.” Knox moved the sheets and coverlet aside, then stood up beside the bed. He took her hand and urged her to her feet. “It won’t be long before his body is discovered. Before that happens, I need to get you and the boy away from Parrish Falls. I need to take you somewhere safe.”
She struggled to process what she was hearing. Travis, dead. She felt no sadness over that fact, but it was impossible to hide her shock. And while Knox’s emotionless confession didn’t scare her, his obvious concern for her and Riley in the wake of the killing put a chill in her marrow.
“Now, Leni. We don’t have a lot of time.”
She hurried to get dressed while Knox turned on a light for her, then fetched her coat and boots. “Tell me what happened. Did you leave tonight looking to kill him?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t let his threat against you stand. But no, I didn’t set out to kill him. I followed him to a bar several miles past the Parrish property. I confronted him, and that’s when I realized I couldn’t let him live.”
Leni stared at him, realization settling over her like a cold rain. “You read his sins.”
He gave a grim nod.
“What did you see?”
“Enough to know that you were right to be afraid of him.” He handed her coat to her. “Pack some things for you and Riley for the next few days. I’ll bring him downstairs while you get ready to leave.”
When he started to head toward the door, Leni grabbed his arm. “There’s nowhere to stay between here and the Canadian border, and the nearest hotel in the other direction is all the way out at the Interstate eighty miles away. Where are we going to go?”
Something unreadable flickered in his stormy blue eyes. “I’ve already made arrangements somewhere safe, somewhere no one will be able to find you. Pack your things. I’ll be waiting with Riley for you downstairs.”
He didn’t wait for her to argue or to ask any of the dozens of questions swirling in her mind. With his brows knit, his expression grim with purpose and resolve, he stalked out of the bedroom like the soldier he was, leaving her to follow his sober instructions.
Leni raced for her closet and began filling a duffel bag.
~ ~ ~
Knox drove Leni’s red Bronco as fast as the old vehicle could handle, following the GPS coordinates Razor had given him for the Order’s safe house location about an hour northeast of Parrish Falls.
He didn’t think the state of Maine could get any denser with forest than where he’d just left, but as the truck bounced and jostled over the snowy, unmaintained road, all he could see ahead of them was darkness and endless miles of tall evergreens.
Leni had kept quiet for the duration of the drive, but he could sense her unease over their sudden flight away from her home—and the reason for it. With Riley sleeping in the backseat, she hadn’t said a word about Travis Parrish’s death, but Knox knew her silence was filled with unasked questions.
Questions he would have to answer for once they were alone at the safe house.
As the Bronco rambled deeper into the uninhabited woodland, his phone announced they had reached their destination.
“I don’t see anything but trees,” Leni murmured from the passenger seat.
“Up there.”
He pointed to the left where a narrow path broke off from the main road—if the narrow one-lane trail through the pines could be called a road. The entrance they turned on to was even less welcoming. Branches nicked against the windows as the truck pushed forward, moving at a crawl through the thick new snow covering the ground.
Although the terrain was forbidding and remote, he trusted Razor and the unmapped satellite coordinates he’d sent to Knox’s phone after the Order had okayed the arrangement.
Leni glanced at him. “Where exactly are you taking us?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said. “Somewhere the Parrishes and county law enforcement won’t know to look for us.”
It was the same answer he’d given her as they’d set out on their trek tonight. Eventually, before the night was over, he would have to tell her everything.
