I get Sadie Jo over to Suncrest Middle, go in the drop-off line and instead of getting out, she lingers. "Dad?"
"Yeah, baby."
She's looking at me with those blue-gray eyes, her backpack straps clutched in both hands, and for a second she looks exactly like she did at three years old, standing in the hallway asking me where Mommy went.
"Are you okay?"
The question lands somewhere between my ribs. "I'm fine, Sadie Jo. Why?"
She shrugs. Too casual. Practiced. "You've been checking the windows a lot. At night. And you keep looking at your phone like you're waiting for something bad."
Thirteen years old and she reads me like I'm made of glass.
"I'm fine," I say again, and I put enough steady into my voice that she accepts it.
She nods, slides out of the truck, and heads toward the school entrance.
I watch her until she’s inside and I don't pull away from the curb until I can't see her anymore.
Then I check the rearview.
The car is there again. Dark sedan, tinted windows, parked on the cross street with a clear sightline to the school entrance.
Nevada plates.
I noticed it the first time four days ago—same car, same spot, different time of day. Twice near my house. Now here. That's three times, and I stopped believing in coincidence a long time ago.
I take my phone out and type the plate number into my notes.
I've already got the other two sightings logged—dates, times, locations.
It's what I do. It's why they made me Secretary. I notice things. I file them. I remember.
The car pulls away before I do.
Heads south on Baldwin Street toward the main road. I watch it go and I don't follow—not yet.
I don't have enough, and tipping my hand before I know what I'm dealing with gets people hurt.
But I feel the weight of it settle into my chest like a stone dropped into still water.
The clubhouse smells like coffee, Aunt Ellie’s famous blueberry muffins, and the faint ghost of last night's whiskey.
I push through the front door and the familiar chaos of a Wednesday morning folds around me—the clink of tools from the garage where Bloodhound is already elbow-deep in some Sportster's engine, the low thud of music from the back, the hiss of the coffee maker that's been running since before dawn.
Maddox is at the bar eating what I’d bet to be his third bowl of cereal.
The man is a mountain—six-something, tattooed from his neck to his knuckles, built like someone stacked two normal humans on top of each other—and he eats like he's trying to fuel all of them.
He nods at me without looking up. I nod back. We've never needed more than that.
I pour myself a coffee—black, because I stopped having the energy for cream and sugar somewhere around year four of single parenting—and settle into the chair by the window.
My chair. The one that gives me a line of sight to the front door, the hallway to Church, and the back exit.
I didn't choose it on purpose the first time. Now it's the only place I sit.
Bloodhound comes in from the garage wiping his hands on a rag, grease streaked up both forearms.
