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ADELE

Blake slouched beside Adele, holding a frosty-blue ice pack to the bridge of his swelling nose. He’d already handed her his shattered glasses, and she held them in the palms of her hands like a wounded baby bird.

Principal White, balding, bespectacled, leaned toward them earnestly over his orderly desk. He was saying something about how the school had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to bullying but that he wasn’t going to be able to help unless Blake told him who had hit him. Who had punched him in the face so hard that his glasses were in pieces and that he’d likely have two black eyes?

“Blake?” said Adele, trying to keep the emotion from her voice. “Who did this?”

The skin on Blake’s face was an angry red. He shifted his body away from her, wouldn’t meet her eyes. Silence.

“I’m concerned,” continued Principal White gently. “Because, as you know, this is not the first time Blake has been targeted. There was the incident in gym class before break. The fight in the cafeteria last May.”

Adele found that she could barely focus on his words, thinking about how when Blake was small, she could gather him in her arms and make anything that was wrong right again. Now at nearly fifteen, her six-foot son towered over her. In fact, he towered over most people. But soft-spoken, with a floppy mane of untamed dark hair, those thick glasses, and his quiet bearing, he was unwilling, it seemed, to stand up for himself in any way. He was, as his older sister, Violet, liked to put it, bully bait .

“It was an accident,” Blake said finally, voice low. “I ran into a locker.”

Principal White’s chair issued a creak as he leaned back, ran a hand over his shiny head. He had sparkling blue eyes, a wiry, runner’s build. They’d been friends once; his wife had worked with Adele’s ex-husband. Birthday parties and barbecues, company picnics, holiday gatherings. But that was before .

Probably the kid, or kids, who had hurt Blake had been friends once, too. Likely they’d been to Adele’s home, swum in their pool, slept over. She might have helped them open a juice box or even bandaged a scraped knee.

They didn’t have as many friends now. Or any friends, really.

Blake pushed himself up from his slouch, stood up, and tugged at his father’s tattered Harvard hoodie. His jeans were too baggy, gathering over his Converse high-tops. The kid was huge. If he put up his fists and fought back, whoever was doing this would surely go running. Not that she advocated violence. But sometimes you had to teach people that they couldn’t hurt you and get away with it, right?

“Can we go?” he asked, voice husky. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

He picked up his backpack from the floor, still keeping the ice to the bridge of his nose.

Adele’s daughter, Violet, was full of fire, her anger volcanic; they were working on dialing that back. Blake folded in onto himself, locked up. Which worried her more.

“Okay, Blake,” said Principal White, resigned. He rose, a full head shorter than the teenager. “My door is open if you want to talk, okay? Anytime. Why don’t you wait outside for your mom?”

Blake lumbered through the door and closed it behind him. Adele released a sigh.

“Who do you think it was?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t like to speculate,” Principal White said with a slight shake of his head. He removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses with a little cloth he took from his pocket. “But I have some ideas.”

Adele had some ideas, too. She felt a familiar flicker of anger, but she quashed it. She was more like her daughter than her son, though Adele had better control over her emotions—most of the time. Blake had her ex-husband Miller’s temperament: reticent, slow to anger, his silence containing volumes.

“Things haven’t been easy,” said Principal White. “I know that.”

Another rush of emotion; her cheeks burned, and she looked away from him. His education degrees from Rutgers were displayed on the wall of his office. A wooden shelf held a slew of track-and-field trophies, framed pictures of his family.

“First Miller,” he said, clearing his throat. “Then Covid. All the kids are struggling to find their footing right now. But Blake has been through that much more.”

Like she needed to be reminded of how much her kids had suffered because of the things their father had done, was still doing in some sense. Her shoulders hiked, aching. She forced them down. Why did expressions of kindness so often feel like condescension? Wasn’t there a note of superiority? His secure position, his intact family, offered a stark and obvious contrast to the mess of her own life.

“I want this to be a safe space for Blake, for all our students. I need him to talk to me, though.”

Adele slipped the broken glasses into the side pocket of her tote. She stood, smoothed out the pleats of her skirt. Both the skirt and the bag were expensive, designer pieces, each about ten years old. They still looked nice, she thought, maybe showing their age a bit. She couldn’t afford anything close with her salary now.

“I’ll talk to him,” she said, tucking her bag under her arm. “Thank you, Principal White.”

“Ken,” he said, smiling warmly, walking around the desk.

“Ken, of course.” She moved toward the door, eager to take Blake home. The air in the sunny office, with the view of the football field outside, had become overwarm. Stifling, in fact.

“Hey, Adele, I just wanted to say…” He seemed to search for the right words. “We don’t hold anything against you. What happened. Everyone knows it had nothing to do with you.”

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Not everyone knew that. The fact that they were still talking about what happened nearly five years later was a reminder of how present it still was in this town. Maybe they should have left, started over someplace else. But they hadn’t, for a million reasons.

“Thank you, Ken,” she said. She forced herself to meet his eyes and smile. What did she see behind the understanding smile? Judgment, clear as day.

Outside the office, Blake had found another place to slouch in one of the chairs beside the door. School had already let out for the day, so the hallways were mercifully empty.

“Let’s go home, kiddo,” she said.

He nodded, rising, followed her to the car.

“So you’re really not going to tell me who did it?” she asked as they took the winding, rural road back to the house. She chose the long way home so that they wouldn’t have to pass the house they used to live in on the way to the place they rented now in a very different part of town. If he’d noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“I think it does, yeah,” she said. “Because people should not be allowed to hurt you, Blakey.”

He turned those dark eyes on her, Miller’s eyes—wise, seeing, too old for his years. And now ringed with purple. He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to change his mind, looked out the window into the golden late afternoon instead.

“Just drop it, Mom, okay?”

She tightened her grip on the wheel, saved her breath. Because she knew that her son was a locked box. There was no prying him open until he was ready, and that might be never.

He was out of the car before she even turned off the engine, disappearing through the front door as she stepped into the chill. The sound of the screen door slamming was as loud as a gunshot, causing her to startle. She glanced around at the trees that surrounded their house, the next place a few miles up the road.

A chill moved down her spine, the strange sense that she often had of being watched.

Paranoid . That’s what Violet would say.

She wished she could chalk it up to that.

* * *

“Why are you protecting them?” Violet was in Blake’s face. “It’s not going to make them like you . You get that, right? It makes you their doormat .”

“Take it easy, Violet,” Adele said as she plated the savory beef stew from the Crock-Pot.

“You know I’m right,” her daughter countered, the seventeen-year-old firebrand. With her wild red hair, flashing blue-gray eyes, searing intelligence, she was a force. Adele found herself often in awe of her daughter’s ability to stand up for herself.

“Those glasses,” Violet went on, “cost eight hundred dollars. We can barely afford that. At the very least, that little fucker and his filthy-rich parents should be paying for it.”

“Language!”

Blake would have to wear his old prescription for a while. The fact that Violet knew that, that it concerned her, was a source of shame for Adele. She’d leaned too much on Violet; as a result, her daughter had had to grow up too fast.

“Let’s put a pin in this until after dinner,” said Adele, setting their dishes on the table while Violet got the water, and Blake, who hadn’t said a word, placed the napkins and silverware. Her heart ached looking at him. Those shiners were growing darker by the second, the surrounding skin pink and raw from the cold of the ice pack.

Anger. It was always on simmer inside her. She’d used it—to get her act together, to get in the best shape of her life, to find work, to pursue a degree, and to take care of her family in the wake of Miller’s crimes. But sometimes it threatened to overwhelm her. She’d need to go a few rounds with the punching bag suspended from the rafters in the garage when the kids were doing their homework.

They sat and ate. Their nightly ritual of sitting for dinner, no matter how late everyone got home, was a comfort to Adele. It was one of the few things she knew she’d done right.

As hot as Violet’s temper ran, it passed just as quickly. Soon, she was talking about how she did okay, not great on her biology test, how her best friend Coral got in trouble in gym class for beaning (accidentally!) one of the mean girls with a volleyball, how all the boys in her school were disgusting . Her chatter was a salve. Even Blake seemed to relax as he scarfed down his meal. He may have even smiled.

She watched them. How could two kids from the same parents be so different? Blake’s black hair a striking contrast to Violet’s fairness, his deep brown eyes against Violet’s sometimes stormy gray, sometimes sky-blue. Blake had his father’s high cheek bones, serious brow. Violet had Adele’s bisque skin, long nose. Adele’s maternal grandparents were Scandinavian. Her father’s mother was Japanese, his father from Nigeria; they met in the Peace Corps. Miller was Russian on both sides. In her children’s faces she saw the blend of all these places around the world. They were true American kids, their heritage a vibrant mosaic. Violet was all light, high energy, optimism. Blake was her worrier, her old soul. That’s the Russian in him , Miller had said when Blake emerged from the womb with a furrowed brow.

“And— ugh —I’m so PMS,” concluded Violet. “I’m getting my period any minute.”

“Jesus, Violet,” Blake finally spoke up. Violet’s smile told Adele that goading her brother had been exactly the point.

“Grow up, you big baby.” She elbowed him. “Women menstruate .”

Blake dipped his head in his hand, blushing. “Seriously, V?”

Adele laughed, the tension of the day easing some.

Then the doorbell rang.

They all froze, looking at each other. Not a normal response to the ringing of the doorbell. But they were not a normal family. They were a family always waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

“Probably just a delivery,” said Adele, rising. “Sit.”

But no. There was an electricity to the air, an energy of something about to go wrong.

When she looked through the glass at the top of the door, she saw a form that had become too familiar. Tall, broad-shouldered, close-shorn hair, hands in pockets, stance wide. What now? She released a sigh, opened the door.

“Why doesn’t anyone ever seem happy to see me?” said Special Agent Sean Coben. He offered his hand, which she reluctantly took. It was strong and calloused in hers, his grip a little too firm.

“What can I do for you, Agent Coben?” She drew her hand back, kept her body in the doorjamb.

“I wanted to let you know,” he said, peering past her into the house, “that we have a lead on your husband. A sighting in Tampa that we think might be legitimate.”

She leaned against the frame. Was this day going to get any worse?

Agent Coben was the most recent in a long line of FBI agents looking for her husband, who had been on the run for the last five years. Coben was definitely the youngest and most energetic of the agents, fresh to the fight, bringing an uncommon enthusiasm to the hunt for a man accused of fraud and embezzlement. Miller’s company, a biotechnology firm that developed prosthetics, among other things, was— had been —a major employer of the town in which they still lived. Due to his alleged activities, the company went bankrupt, employees lost everything, and Miller was said to have absconded with untold millions of dollars, leaving Adele behind to pick up the pieces of their shattered life.

“I have some footage I’d like to show you,” Agent Coben said, rubbing at his clean-shaven jaw.

She swung the door open finally, and he walked inside, standing in the small foyer.

“We’re eating,” she said. “Would you like to join us?”

He smiled, maybe intuiting that it was a polite invitation that would be impolite to accept, lifted a palm. “Thank you. I’ll just wait here until you’re done.”

The kids were standing inside the kitchen door when she returned.

“Did they find Dad?” asked Blake, childishly hopeful.

“If they’d found him, he’d be in jail,” said Violet, face stone-still, eyes sad.

The pain that her husband had caused his children was a knife in her gut every single time.

“He’s not going to jail,” said Blake. “Because he’s innocent. He was framed .”

“You,” said Violet softly, moving toward the sink, “are an idiot.”

Blake glared but stayed quiet.

“Violet, in this family we treat each other with respect,” said Adele, the words sounding weak even to her. “No name-calling.”

Violet shook her head, mouth pressed into a thin line, stayed silent. No back talk, but no apology, either.

“Kids,” she said, clearing her dish. She’d lost her appetite. “Finish eating and go work on your homework. If there’s any news, I’ll talk to you about it when Agent Coben leaves.”

After Blake and Violet went upstairs, Adele sat with Agent Coben at the kitchen island. On his iPad, he showed her footage of a man walking down a city street, the image black-and-white and grainy. It could have been Miller. Baseball cap, mirrored glasses, light jacket, and jeans, it could have been anyone.

“We got a call, then pulled area footage. This was all we found.”

“Why Tampa?”

“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”

Adele and Miller met in Florida; Miller had always talked about returning there someday. He loved the beach lifestyle, boats and warm weather all year. The last alleged Miller sighting had been in Majorca; before that, Greece. But if he had any connections in Tampa, any reason to go there, Adele had no idea what those might be. Her husband was a stranger to her, maybe in light of everything that had happened, even after ten years of marriage and two children, he always had been.

“Has he reached out to you?” asked Agent Coben, keeping his dark, girlishly lashed eyes on her. His gaze was warm but unyielding.

“You’d know if he had, wouldn’t you?” It was no secret that she was still under FBI surveillance. It was subtle, but she knew.

“People have their ways,” said Coben easily.

“He hasn’t. And if he had, I would have called you. I would like Miller to come to justice, even if just for closure for my kids.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

Something flashed across his face. Empathy maybe. “Love is complicated.”

She gave him an assenting nod. “I haven’t heard from him. And I couldn’t swear that the man in your footage is him. It could be anyone.”

He froze the image and zoomed in on the man on the lonely, gray street.

“Are you sure?”

She tried to call to mind an image of her husband: his fine features, his strong body, his carriage. Instead, all she could remember was his scent, the feel of his arms, the timbre of his deep voice, how loved, how safe he had always made her feel. Those were the things that she missed, even now, desperately. The image on the screen was ghostly, distant. Possibly Miller. Maybe not.

Where are you? she wondered for the millionth time, the question more physical ache than words.

“I don’t know if that’s him,” she said, rubbing at the fatigue behind her eyes. “I don’t think so? I’m sorry.”

She wondered about Agent Coben, not for the first time. He seemed young, no wedding ring. Polite, not hard like some of the others; he didn’t appear to judge her. There was something about his quiet but determined way that put her at ease. She wanted to ask him questions. Why this work? This case? How did it get assigned to you? Do you think you’ll find him? But she stopped short of that. The next time the bell rang, it could be someone else there.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” she asked, chronically polite. “Coffee?”

He shook his head. “Thank you. No.”

One last look at the image on his screen. She shrugged again. Coben nodded, then took his device and got up to leave.

In the foyer, he stopped and turned around. “Most people get caught, you know.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Life on the run is no life. There’s no comfort in it. People start to miss their families. Regret sets in. Usually it’s weddings or funerals where we get them. Calls on birthdays or anniversaries. Even people in witness protection, whose lives depend on staying hidden, can’t always stay away forever.”

Adele found herself shaking her head. “Miller won’t come back.”

Now it was Agent Coben’s turn to stay silent.

“He doesn’t care about us,” she said. “If he did, he never could have done this, or stayed away so long.”

Upstairs she heard heavy footsteps down the hall, a slammed door. Blake had been listening in. Maybe he needed to hear it.

“I’ll be in touch,” said Agent Coben. Then he was gone.

* * *

In the garage, Adele wrapped her hands to protect her knuckles underneath the boxing gloves. The heavy bag hung from the rafters.

She thought about going live for her followers.

Her WeWatch channel where she had chronicled her journey back from loss, losing weight with a nutrition and workout routine of her own creation, and a return to competing in half-marathons and the Tough Be-atch obstacle course competitions was steadily growing.

Once upon a time, she used to be a marathon runner, before she had her kids and had slowly allowed the tide of life and motherhood to take her away from the physical strength and fitness she’d once considered her birthright. Then, after the brutal months of grieving and trying to convince the FBI that she hadn’t been an accomplice in Miller’s crimes, terrified that she would go to jail, leaving her kids all alone and devastating her elderly parents, she decided to channel her fear, anxiety, and rage into getting her body back.

Blake, her WeWatch fanatic, did all the setting up of her account, teaching her how to post and go live. She thought it was silly at first; she wasn’t native to living her life online. But it turned out that her message of reclaiming yourself and coming back from adversity resonated. And having that virtual community of supporters, helping people who had suffered even worse fates than hers, kept her focused.

Instead of going live, she decided to record for later.

She propped up her phone, pressed Record, donned her gloves.

“This is a great way to blow off steam and burn some major calories,” she told the camera. “Jab. Cross. Hook. Upper Cut. Again.”

When she’d done this a few times, she looked back. “Better the bag than the person you really want to punch.”

She threw a few more combos.

“Don’t get even. Get in shape.”

Then she turned off the camera and cranked her music, lost herself for a while. Tried not to think about the fact that (jab) her Visa card was nearly maxed. That (cross) her small savings account dwindled every month rather than grew. That (hook) her expenses regularly outstripped her earnings as a school counselor, a job she’d only landed because of a favor from a friend. That (upper cut) she had no idea how she was going to pay for college for Violet and then Blake without taking on even more debt. That (again) in the years since Miller left, she’d battled sometimes crippling anxiety and insecurity, even as she pretended to be strong for her kids.

Jab. Cross. Hook. Upper Cut. Again. Again. Again. Again.

“Mom.”

Blake stood at the door that led from the garage to the house.

“Hey,” she said, mopping the sweat from her brow, slipping off her gloves.

He came down the few steps, leaned on the workbench where she’d propped up her phone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About my glasses.”

She put a tender hand to his cheek. “It’s okay, Blakey. It’s not your fault.”

“I know they’re expensive,” he said. “And I know—money’s always tight now.”

Shame again, sadness, washed up hot. She’d be punching that bag all night and still never get rid of that feeling.

“I have an idea,” he said. “It might be a little crazy.”

He held up his iPhone.

“Maverick,” Blake went on. “He’s doing another game.”

Maverick Dillan was Blake’s idol, a WeWatch celebrity and founder of Maverick’s Extreme Games and Insane Challenges. Wild man, philanthropist, and athlete, he and his posse did stunts around the globe and hosted games where other influencers competed live for their followers.

“The prize is a million dollars,” said Blake with a note of awe.

She felt a tingle of unease. Hadn’t there been something during one of his competitions? Some kind of accident? A girl gone missing?

“Mom,” said Blake, more urgent, “a million dollars. Plus, think of all the followers you would gain from participating in the challenge. You’d achieve influencer status, for sure. That’s big money on WeWatch.”

“Okay, wow,” she said. “What’s the game?”

He raised his eyebrows, flashed her a grin. “Extreme Hide and Seek, at an abandoned hotel on some remote island.”

How many of those had she watched with Blake? Truthfully, it all seemed a little fake and hollow to Adele, not quite real, something done just for the cameras. People hid in abandoned buildings—supposedly haunted houses, deserted hospitals and prisons, dilapidated asylums—all the while broadcasting live. There was never any real danger. Just some jump scares for the camera, some created drama between contestants. The kids loved it, though.

And Maverick—sometimes he came off as a little unhinged, doing things that were unsafe and reckless. His so-called fail reels—devastating slope wipeouts, precipitous falls, and bone-crunching skateboard crashes—were terrifying. But he always seemed to walk away unharmed. There was something, though, tapping at her memory…something bad had happened during one of the stunts or games. She’d have to search it.

“When does it start?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Two weeks. There’s a spot for one more hider.”

Blake held out his phone for her, showing the page on Extreme’s website where the text was in big red type against a black backdrop.

Maverick’s Extreme Games and Insane Challenges

PRESENTS

The most INTENSE game of hide and seek EVER!

The biggest prize offered in the history of Extreme!

The winner walks away with ONE MILLION dollars!

Influencers,

APPLY HERE NOW!

She was surprised by a little jangle of excitement.

She wasn’t really thinking about this, was she? She’d have to get time off work. Figure out who was going to take care of the kids.

No. It was really not even an option.

But—a million dollars? That would be a game changer.

And she wasn’t sure how it all worked, but she knew the more followers she had, the better. Lately, she’d been hearing from WeWatch, with tips and advice on how to grow her audience, monetize her page with advertising, sponsor content (known as spon con ). She’d even been approached via DM by a couple of companies for small sponsorships, but nothing she believed in. An energy drink filled with sugar and chemicals. A vegan protein bar which she’d sampled and hated. She’d passed on both.

It was like a new world she was trying to navigate. She knew people were making money as WeWatch influencers. Lots of it.

But. There was no way she could fly to some abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere to play a game of extreme hide and seek, right?

“Mom,” said Blake, watching her intently, “you really slayed at that last Tough Be-atch competition.”

She’d come in third in her age group, beating her time on the obstacle course by a full minute. She’d crossed the finish line, bleeding from a scraped knee, drenched in sweat, and totally pumped.

Blake went on, “All you have to do for this challenge is hide and not get found. It’s like a no-brainer. Zero risk, huge reward.”

Impossible. Moms didn’t do things like that.

Or did they?

Maybe it was the trip to the principal’s office, the sight now of Blake’s black eyes, the visit from Agent Coben, that grainy image of a man who might or might not be Miller. She felt so lost sometimes, so powerless to right the wrongs in her life, in the lives of her kids.

“You can do this,” Blake said, clamping a bear-claw hand on her shoulder. “I believe in you.”

There was something so excited and electric in his gaze, and it connected to something buried within her.

Before she could think twice, she tapped on the bright red link.