"Nothing taken. Nothing broken. They moved chairs and left a glass of water on the counter."
"What the fuck?"
"I know."
"They're showing you they can get to anything. Anytime. It's a pressure play—they want you scared and desperate enough to find the money."
"I don't have two hundred thousand dollars, Ounce."
"They know that. That's the point. They want you to find it—borrow it, steal it, sell everything you own. They want you to understand that the only way this stops is if they get paid."
"There's another way it stops."
He's quiet for a beat. "Yeah. There is. But we're not there yet. Let Ruger know. And Coin—change your locks tonight."
Wrenleigh calls me a quarter past two from school.
She never calls from school.
She texts—short, clipped, usually demanding, complaining about something, or sending me a meme I don't understand.
She doesn't call. The fact that her name is on my screen with a phone icon instead of a text bubble makes my blood go cold before I even answer.
"Baby, what's wrong?"
She's crying.
Wrenleigh—my girl who didn't cry with a bone coming through her skin—is crying, and the sound of it nearly takes me off my feet.
"Haley," she chokes out. "Dad, it's Haley. Haley Briggs. She— they found her in the bathroom at school. She wasn't breathing. The paramedics came and they— Dad, they took her away in an ambulance and nobody will tell us anything and I don't?—"
"I'm coming. Stay where you are. I'm coming right now."
I'm in the truck before she finishes the sentence.
Morgantown High is twelve minutes from my house and I make it in eight.
Wrenleigh is sitting on the curb outside the main entrance.
Not standing, not pacing—sitting, with her arms wrapped around her knees and her blonde hair hanging in her face and her whole body curved inward like she's trying to make herself as small as possible.
Krypton is standing ten feet away, pretending to be casual, watching the perimeter the way he's been doing for weeks.
I crouch in front of her and put my hands on her knees. "Look at me."
She looks up. Her eyes are red and swollen and furious—because Wrenleigh, even in grief, is angry.
She's always angry. It's how she survives.
"Is she dead?" she asks. Point blank. No softening.
"I don't know, baby. They took her to Ruby Memorial. That's a good hospital. She's?—"
"That's where Leah works. Is Leah there? Can Leah help her?"
The fact that my daughter's first thought is Leah—that in the worst moment of her sixteen-year-old life, the person she wants is the nurse who treated her fractured leg and shows up at our house to help with PT exercises and homework—hits me hard.
"I'll call her," I say. "Let's go get Sadie Jo first."
