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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kaden

I don’t hate it.

T he tires crunch over the pavement as I pull into the driveway of Josie’s childhood home. It’s a small, unassuming house on a cul-de-sac—the kind of place that has seen decades of birthday parties and scraped knees, family dinners and late-night porch conversations. The kind of place people stay.

I don’t stay.

Of course she grew up on a cul-de-sac. Of course it’s a neat little house with a trimmed lawn and a worn welcome mat. This is the kind of place people come home to. I don’t come home.

I shake off those negative thoughts. Where she lived only matters in terms of what it will tell me about her. I need to focus.

Josie’s already unbuckling before the car fully stops, her focus entirely on the house, on the next thing she needs to do . In a flash she’s out, moving toward the door, digging in her purse for keys, leaving me to chase after her.

I sigh and follow her inside. Her mother is waiting, flustered but grateful.

The second Josie introduces me as her friend Ken, her mother looks me over, neither approving nor disapproving, then waves me toward the furniture like I’m already part of the family task force.

I move everything that needs to be moved. I clear paths for the wheelchair. I fix a busted hinge. I carry heavy things out of the way. It should feel neutral. Just another task. But it doesn’t. I fix things by eliminating them. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m good at. But this—this is different. No target. No mission. Just... something that needs to be finished. And I don’t hate it.

Then I see the half-finished repair of a corner of the roof over the porch. There’s a ladder on its side in the grass. Was Josie’s father working on this before he fell?

Well, he’s not going to be finishing it any time soon. That shouldn’t bother me, but it does. All of his tools are still there along with the shingles he intended to use.

Josie wouldn’t expect me to fix it for him. She already likes me. There’s no additional payoff to getting further involved here.

But I can’t leave it like that.

My father wouldn’t have been able to either.

I’m still on the roof, securing shingles, when I hear footsteps on the ground below.

“Roofing job’s not bad,” an old man’s voice calls up. “But your layering’s too tight. You want it snug, not suffocating.”

I glance down. How can he even tell what I’m doing from down there?

“I’m Henry,” he says and thumbs toward the house next door. “Live over there.”

That explains enough. He probably watches everything from his home. Old people are spies who work for no agency. Henry takes hold of the bottom of the ladder to steady it.

I don’t need him to, but I don’t tell him to stop either. In my world every action is calculated and every act of kindness is strategic. I don’t understand the rules of this place.

“You done this before?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral.

“Son, I was fixing roofs before you were born,” Henry says. “My wife wants to know if you’re Josie’s new guy.”

I huff a short laugh despite myself. “Your wife, huh?”

“Maybe I do too. Josie’s like family. I helped her out of her car seat the day she came home from the hospital. Got stuck changing one of her first explosive diapers too. I don’t know how that happened. Everyone just kind of scattered when the poop reached her hairline.”

Coughing on a laugh, I completely understand. I would have do the same. “So you’ve known her a long time.”

“Sure have. She’s the real deal.”

I make a non-committal sound.

Henry takes that as an invitation to keep talking. “Josie’s always done everything right. Always made the right choices. Always worried about living up to the expectations of others and making everyone happy. That’s an impossible standard to maintain.”

I pause. Nothing here supports her being a danger and I don’t like how that’s messing with my head. I need to find something, anything that points toward her wanting to take over the world or topple governments.

“Her mother didn’t understand why she moved away, but I did. She’d painted herself into a corner of perfection. Everyone here liked her. And that became its own kind of prison. She couldn’t be herself. That’s all she’s looking for—a place she can be wrong sometimes.” He clears his throat. “Be good to her, and by that I mean, let her fuck up now and then and don’t go making a big deal about it. Everyone needs someone they can be real with.”

I grip the hammer so tightly my hand cramps. I am looking for the real Josie, but not for any reason Henry would approve of. A shadow of guilt nips at me and I glare at Henry. I don’t believe in guilt. It serves no purpose.

This man needs to get away from me. I shoot him another nasty look, but he just stands there, and trapped beneath his sustained attention I succumb to a memory.

A glimpse—

I was seven years old, sitting on my mother’s lap, the scent of her lavender shampoo filling my nose as she ran her fingers through my hair. She was laughing—God, she was always laughing back then. She said I was too serious for a kid my age. That I needed to lighten up. That I had plenty of time to worry about the world later. It was like she knew she wouldn’t always be with me and caring for her would rob us both of laughter.

Another flash—

My father’s voice—strong, steady—teasing me about how I stacked the firewood wrong. But then pulling me in anyway, ruffling my hair, making me do it again. Who would I have become had he lived? Had someone to share the weight of caring for my mother with?

And then—I slam a door on the past and return to nailing shingles to the roof. Henry takes the hint and eventually walks away.

I’m still up on the ladder when I hear someone catcall whistle. “Wow, no wonder Josie doesn’t come home often.”

I turn and spot a younger version of Josie. Her hair is faded blue in front with an undercut of green. Torn jeans, a slightly offensive T-shirt, and a whole lot of teenage attitude. “Do me a favor?”

“Depends on what it is.”

She rolls her eyes like my stipulation was unfair. “If anyone asks you to stay over, say you’ll be happy on the couch because I’m the one who always has to give up my room, and if my father hears you slept with Josie under his roof he really will have a heart attack.”

“Couch it is,” I say. “If I’m asked.”

“And we never had this conversation.”

That has me gurgling back a laugh. “Understood.”

She gives me one last snark-filled look and disappears into the house. I would ask her name, but I know from Josie’s files that she has a sister named Taylor. Apparently, growing up in the shadow of perfection has encouraged Josie’s little sister to take an alternate approach to life.

The sun is setting by the time Josie finds me, still outside, putting away tools. She stops short when she sees the repaired overhang. “You did that?”

I shrug. “It needed doing.”

She blinks, then shakes her head and gets a little teary. “I don’t know what to say,” she murmurs. “Thank you.”

“It didn’t take long.” Her emotional response is making me feel all weird and uncomfortable.

Josie steps closer and searches my face. “What’s your family like?”

My stomach and my teeth clench. “I don’t have any.”

I expect a follow-up question, but instead she steps forward and hugs me. Not a polite hug. Not a flirty hug. A real, solid, grounding hug.

The kind of hug that could heal a man’s soul—would have healed mine if I still had one. I give into an impulse and hug her back, burying my face in her hair. And we just stand there for a long time, not speaking, and me doing my best to not think.

I had something like this once. A long time ago.

Maybe if I’d met her back then, before I joined the agency, before I became something unrecognizable to even myself.

But I didn’t.

And she might have been able to step out of her old life and start over, but that’s not an option that’s available to people like me.