Page 123 of Shatter

Then I cried in the parking lot for ten minutes before I could drive back.

Three days ago.

Three days of lying next to him at night, knowing.

"Where are we meeting him?" I stare out the windshield at the dark road.

"Panama City." Pierce doesn't take his eyes off the road. "A hotel on the beach. His lawyer's there, and Dad's lawyer is on the phone. You hand it over and sign the release. Then it's done."

"And then I walk out." I keep my eyes on his face.

"And then you walk out." He nods. "I'll drive you anywhere you want to go."

I watch his face in the green glow of the dashboard.

His jaw is tight.

A muscle keeps jumping under his ear, the way it used to when he lied to Mom about where he'd been on Friday nights.

I look away.

It doesn't matter.

I'm not here because I believe him.

I'm here because every day I stayed, Desmond got a little closer to the gate, and one of these nights, it wasn't going to be a man with a knife in a parking lot.

It was going to be something worse.

Something coming through the fence for Hakon and Ulf, or for Tindra's baby asleep in his crib.

If Desmond thinks he has the drive, he stops looking, and they're safe.

And the real one's with Dag, where it can bury Desmond if he ever comes near them again.

I've run it so many times I can see it with my eyes closed.

It comes out the same every time.

The sky starts going gray over the pines somewhere past Crawfordville.

I know this road.

I rode it yesterday morning with my arms around Hakon's waist and my face pressed into his back, screaming into the wind.

My eyes sting.

I blink it back and keep them on the road.

At the junction where the highway splits, a green sign flashes past in the headlights.

Panama City, straight ahead, and Apalachicola, left.

Pierce turns left.

The car swings through the curve, and my shoulder bumps the door.

Every hair on my arms lifts.