I can’t move.
“Kara. Now.”
This time I do. He gets me through the porch door and into the living room, then locks it behind us. His phone is already at his ear, my phone in his other hand.
“Sloane,” he says, and his voice is so calm it scares me more. “We have a live-proximity photo. Taken from the dune side. Message says he can’t watch everywhere.”
My legs stop working. I sit on the edge of the sofa because the room tilts slightly. And if I fall, I do not want Cole to have one more thing to manage.
He turns, sees me, and his expression changes.
“Breathe,” he says.
I try, but nothing happens.
He crosses to me and crouches in front of the sofa, still listening to Sloane, still watching the doors, still somehow with me. One of his hands closes around mine.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do. His eyes are blue and furious beneath the calm.
“In through your nose. Slow.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I was just there.”
“I know.”
“Cole, I was just there.”
His hand tightens around mine. “I know.”
The words break something loose in me. Not a sob. Just a sharp, broken breath that hurts all the way down.
He speaks into the phone again. “We’re moving. Now. Send Eli to the dune path. Get Rafi on tower data for the new number. I want the road covered before I put her in the vehicle.”
A pause.
“I don’t care if it’s daylight.”
Another pause.
“No. The Sandpiper is done.”
The Sandpiper is done. The words hit strangely.
This cottage was supposed to be safety. Escape. A pretty blue pause between my real life and whatever waited for me back in Orlando.
Now it is only a place someone found me.
Cole ends the call and looks at me. “We’re leaving.”
“Where?”
“Dune Garden Inn. Sloane has a cottage he uses for relocation. Different name. Different booking. No public connection to you.”
