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“We’ll go to her house,” he replies. “Her father will be leaving for work.”

“How do you know—?”

He shoots me a look, and I shut up.

Cameras. Right. He probably knows everyone’s schedules in this town.

And for what? Why does he watch people?

I want to know, but I don’t want to talk to him to get the answer.

“If they catch her, we need to go in,” I say. “And she’s coming back here to hide with us.”

“No one is coming back here…except us.”

He walks around the island, passing me, and for some reason, I don’t stop myself. “What is this place to you? How did you find it?”

I look up at him as he stands near me, but when he turns his eyes down on me, I stop breathing for a second.

I blink, turning forward, toward the stove.

“Why do you look away when I look at you?” he asks instead.

Hawke

I should’ve asked about her arm, but I’m pretty sure she would’ve hit me. People like that would rather boil to death than let anyone know they need help. There’s no talking to her.

I take out my phone and check the time before dialing. It’s after six.

It takes four rings, but I hear my cousin clear her throat and say in a groggy voice. “Yeah, I’m here. Are you okay?”

I head into the surveillance room, shaking my head as I switch one of the cameras over to our street, Fall Away Lane. “So worried about my safety that you’re sleeping?”

“It passes the time,” she mumbles.

I see her car parked in front of her house, which means her dad needed to get out of the garage early this morning. He’s up already, and I pan over to the house next to theirs, seeing my parents’ porch light still on. They probably haven’t been to bed, but I hope that they have. I don’t want them worrying.

Of course, they will anyway, but they can at least sleep.

“Go to my room,” I tell her, bringing up the local news on the monitor to my left and my social media on the right. “Get my laptop and my spare key in my nightstand. Bring my bike and park it in the old High Street garage.”

“Your parents are going to know I took it, Hawke,” she argues. “They’ll corner me when I get back.”

“Not if you move now,” I reply, typing with one hand and holding the phone with the other. “Wheel it to the end of the block and then start it up.”

“But it’s raining.”

I keep my laugh to myself. I’m fucking running for my life, and she’s whining like she did when I used to steal her Oreos. It’s actually comforting. Helps me suspend the belief that I’m in more trouble than I want to admit. “I love you,” I tease.

“Ugh…” And she hangs up, not satisfied with my response.

Aro appears on one of the cameras, washing her dish and drinking a full cup of water before refilling it and downing another.

I move to my left, scanning the screens and seeing mention in the local paper of access to the pond suspended due to construction but no further details about why. I sift through article after article—my uncle’s case to keep some big developer from buying the old hospital out on Highway 6 and turning it into a casino, the minutes from the PTO meeting, and the exposé on “How Cooperative is a Co-Op? Really?”

But nothing about me. Or her.

Drew Reeves doesn’t want the public’s help finding us.

Great. That can’t be good.

I pull my keyboard up on the riser and stand in front of the monitors, bringing up the county database. I force my fingers to move before I have too much time to think.

The girl is unpredictable. And she has baggage. Lots of it. If she goes back home for those kids, Reeves will have already established footing with her stepfather. He’ll know the second she steps in that house.

Not sure her mother can be trusted. Not many people would turn in their own kid, but I can’t take away both parents right now anyway. Putting those kids in foster care won’t make Aro Marquez more cooperative with me.

But her stepdad needs to go.

240 – Assault, I type out. I add in Domestic Violence, Person with a Gun, Child Abuse, Shooting at Inhabited Dwelling, and…—I think and then shrug—Dead Human Body.

He’ll be in jail a couple of weeks on several bogus warrants before they figure any of this out. And hey, I might get lucky. Some of it is certainly true, and they might be able to prove it.

I link his last known location to the hospital after the gunshot wound last night, and pause over the enter button like I always do when I know I’m about to do something that’s either incredibly clever, or really, fucking stupid. I exhale and hit the key. “Screw it.”