“Yeah,” he murmured. “That tracks.”
They drove like that for a while, the hum of tires against asphalt filling the gaps between everything they weren’t saying.
After a few minutes, Madelaine said, “I didn’t stop loving you.”
Jack’s eyes snapped open. He turned his head slowly.
“Don’t,” he said, voice low.
“It’s true.”
“Don’t say things like that if you’re just going to push me away again.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
She flinched.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?” he demanded. “From you?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate. Certain. And completely devastating.
Jack let out a slow breath.
“That’s the problem, Madelaine,” he said. “You don’t get to decide what I’m willing to risk.”
She tightened her grip on the wheel.
“And you don’t get to decide what I’m willing to lose.”
That silenced him.
Because there it was.
The truth of it.
They weren’t fighting each other.
They were fighting the choices that had already been made.
Jack realized this wasn’t just about getting to Suspicion, Minnesota.
It was about whether they’d survive this journey…
With anything left between them at all.
Chapter Seven
Suspicion, Minnesota, the next day
Madelaine was bone-tired, and not just from the long drive or staying up all night to get it done. She was emotionally weary from fending off Jack and all of his reasonable questions. The questions he totally deserved answers to, but she was unable to tell him because of the choices she had made. He was just going to have to trust her. She’d done the best she could.
“Okay,” Jack said, glancing at his phone. “It’s almost one o’clock in the afternoon. I think it would be best just to go inside the municipal building, march up to the desk of the Secret Keeper’s assistant and ask Chester if we can see him. The Secret Keeper, I mean.”
