Page 119 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name

THREE WEEKS LATER

Jessica foldedthe last of her clothes and tucked them into the suitcase. It was brand new—bought especially for the move. Her old one had vanished somewhere on that lonely Mississippi highway, lost for good. She didn’t miss it. If anything, it felt like a fitting metaphor: leaving the past behind, untethering herself from the weight of everything she’d been carrying.

And she was leaving behind more than just a battered old suitcase.

She glanced around her bedroom, taking in the empty spaces where her life had once been. When she’d finally been discharged from the hospital and cleared by the alphabet soup of agencies that had pried into every corner of her existence, she’d booked the first flight back to the sun-drenched familiarity of Florida. But the moment she arrived in Panama City Beach, reality hit hard.

Her house, still wrapped in crime scene tape, stood like a monument to everything she had endured. Inside, the wreckage remained untouched—clothes scattered, furniture overturned, food all over the floor. The air still felt thick with the ghost of that night.

For three days, she had sifted through the mess, tossing what was unsalvageable into a skip bin, boxing up the rest for long-term storage. Now, all that remained was a single suitcase, overstuffed with the last remnants of her life.

She had gotten good at this—packing up, starting over.

Practice makes perfect.

She zipped it up and grabbed the handle, ready to drag it off the bed. Then she froze. There was someone standing in her bedroom doorway.

Heart pounding, she turned to face the intruder. When she saw who it was, she exhaled, her pulse slowing but not quite returning to normal.

He looked very different from the last time she’d seen him in that doorway. When he’d worn a chromium star on his belt and a Glock on his hip. Now he lacked both, though she doubted he was unarmed.

Because he wasn’t a deputy U.S. marshal any longer. Now he was Ryan Inglis, a wanted fugitive.

He was wearing jeans and sneakers and a dark blue hoodie. The casual clothes seemed out of character. Whenever she thought about him—and she was embarrassed to admit that she had thought about him—it was always in a crisp white shirt, with his hair neatly combed.

Then she reminded herself that she didn’t really know him at all. She never had.

He looked tired, and he hadn’t shaved in about a week. Somehow, the dark circles and the golden scruff on his jaw made him look more attractive. Less boy-next-door and more ruggedly handsome. Life on the run apparently suited him.

He glanced at the wall over her bed, where she’d attempted to scrub the spray-paint off. It had taken two bottles of turpentine and cost her all her acrylic nails on one hand, but she’d faded it to a faint mark.

Neither of them spoke; they just stared at each other. Finally, she ended the standoff. “There are a lot of people out there looking for you.”

He broke eye contact with her but said nothing.

“I heard every U.S. marshal in the country has joined the hunt. I heard they set up a special task force just for you.”

His jaw worked, but still he remained silent.

“One of them could have been watching this house,” she said.

Finally, he spoke. “There wasn’t. I made sure.”

She put her hands on her hips and looked down at her bare mattress. “I hope you’re not here to apologize. Because that would be supremely inadequate.”

He didn’t answer. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows.

He raked his hand through his hair, finally looking a bit more like the Ryan she remembered. “I came to see if you were okay.”

She gave a dry laugh. “I’m alive. Okay would be pushing it.”

He was looking at her, and she could feel his eyes taking in her still-bruised face. The swelling around her broken cheekbone was subsiding, but the dark purple and yellow hues of her two black eyes remained quite vivid.

“I heard what happened,” he said softly. “That you killed them. All three.”

She looked away, squeezing the handle of her suitcase.

“You did good.”