Rebecca Frost

Pending – Chapter Thirty-Two

They had the spare bedroom, but it was turned into an office, so there was no space for a spare bed. Owen drove them back to their apartment anyway, because Nell didn’t think they’d be able to separate him from Kent for a while yet. The last time father and son had seen each other, Kent’s hair was short, his face clean-shaven, and his skin free of tattoos. He’d filled out since then, not just muscle, but previously—back when his name had been Martin James Cooper—he’d looked like a ninety-nine-pound weakling. The classic nerd. He hadn’t actually worn pocket protectors, but that was what the imagination used to add. Not leather jackets and motorcycle boots.

Okay, the tattoos were still pretty nerdy.

Kent’s hand was all but clamped down on hers as they sat in the back seat of the dark car with its tinted windows, but aside from directions, he didn’t say anything. So maybe he wanted to go back to Michigan and … God, how would that even work? They’d have to change their names again, and what would that do to their marriage license? And things like taxes and just …

It’s over.

Kent left his family for her. Even though it wasn’t supposed to take this long, he’d turned his back on them, agreeing to only communicate through letters, so he could stay with her. Join her in this new life, which quickly just became her life, and now … Wait, was she thinking she couldn’t follow him back? Maybe it would help if she actually believed it was over.

“Pull in here,” Kent told his dad. “That’s our car, so you can block us in.”

Okay and now Owen was going to look at the apartment she’d put together with his son and … judge it. Even if he didn’t mean to judge it, he would. The lack of old photos … the size … the general emptiness … most days it didn’t feel empty, because Kent filled it up, not just with his shoulders but with his smiles and personality. Kent was enough to make any space into home for her, so of course she’d follow him back if that was what he wanted.

He squeezed her hand before they unbuckled their seatbelts, separated by the car until he came around to her side and reached for her, like he needed the comfort of Nell tucked under his arm, and that was good. Even if he was only doing it to make her feel better, it was good.

Owen showing up didn’t mean it stopped being the two of them against the world.

Nell was faster with the keys, so she unlocked the outer door and went up first to the apartment door to open that, too, and shuffle through the regular coming home ritual of keys and purse and shoes and the rest, finding space for Owen’s things, too. “I should call your mother,” he told Kent. “She’ll probably want to FaceTime, but I should, uh …”

“Prepare her?” Kent suggested.

Owen’s smile didn’t change, but he shrugged. “Yeah, maybe a little.”

He pointed to the short hallway. “Den’s back there on the right. You can shut the door.”

Owen nodded and went, and before Nell could fully turn to Kent, he’d taken her shoulders and bent down toward her. “Okay, look, I don’t want to do some sort of unilateral decision,” he said in a low voice, searching her face, “so if you want to move back, we can talk about it, but … Nell, I just really like our lives here, and—”

She grabbed his face and pulled him in for something that started out more collision than kiss, but then their arms adjusted to go around each other and their mouths opened and their tongues met. Kent moaned, making her shiver. “Fuck …”

“Not when my dad’s going to walk in on us,” he whispered in her ear, nibbling on it despite his protests before pulling back a little. “God, he’s here.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, not ready to let go yet but trying to force her temperature down out of pure will. “He hasn’t changed a bit.”

Kent tilted his head. “As opposed to …”

“Look, if they can’t see that you’re happier—”

“They’re not going to see that I’m happier because they didn’t see anything was wrong,” he protested, keeping his voice a low hiss. “I didn’t …” Sighing he lowered his head to press their foreheads together. “I didn’t let them see the real thing, so now …”

“Here they are!” Owen announced, and Nell couldn’t tell if he said it to make sure they knew they were being watched or to convince Donna that yes, this was her son and daughter-in-law.

Kent reached for his dad’s phone, bringing the screen closer to see her—dark blue glasses that hadn’t been there five years ago, but hair the same Clairol color as always—and having to let go from Nell to swipe at his eyes. “God, Mom …”

“Here, sit down,” Owen urged, getting the two of them together on the couch. “We can put this …” He didn’t have any sort of stand on the back of his phone, but he piled a couple things on the coffee table and MacGyvered something to keep it at a good angle. It wasn’t the biggest couch, but Nell scooted over so Kent could move, too, and his dad could squeeze in, and maybe Kent didn’t think about it as claiming her, but his arm went around her once his hands were free.

“My word, look at you!” Donna exclaimed once things were settled and she’d wiped her eyes a few times. “I wouldn’t have recognized you on the street!”

“Aw, Mom …”

“No, really. That beard?” She clucked her tongue and shook her head like she was wishing she could reach through the screen with a razor and a pair of scissors.

Okay, that wasn’t fair, Nell told herself. None of them had prepared for this, and yeah, Owen and Donna were the absolute definition of clean-cut, but that didn’t mean she had to move past the joy of seeing her son again and decided to fixate on his looks as her next hurdle.

“And—are those tattoos? Real ones?”

Kent glanced down, because yeah, his sleeves were rolled up. “Pretty sure, yeah. They haven’t washed off yet.”

“Donna, we talked about—”

“Safety and whatever, yeah, sure,” she said, flapping a hand at her husband. “But … well, Martin … haven’t you thought about getting a job?”

Nell wasn’t the only one who stiffened at his old name, but Kent kept his voice steady. “I’ve already got a job, Mom.”

“Well, sure, but … a better one, honey. Because you don’t have to pretend you’re not yourself anymore. You’ve got that college degree, so whatever you’ve been up to, you know, as …” Another hand flap completed this sentence.

They hadn’t provided details in their letters. Owen and Donna had, because their identities and movements weren’t a secret, but they didn’t know what Kent and Nell had been up to. Come to think of it, they hadn’t even known their new names, so when Owen heard Art call her Nell …

“It’s Kent now, Mom.”

“Well, there.”

“It’s Kent,” he repeated. “Officially, legally, it’s my name. There’s no record of me ever having a different one.”

Donna shook her head to dismiss that. “Well your father can just undo what he did and—”

“It’s actually not that—”

“We haven’t even talked—”

Father and son stopped and looked at each other, but Nell was almost relieved at what Owen started to say. It’s actually not that simple? Had he started to protest that no, he couldn’t really undo what had been done?

“We’ll talk about it,” Owen said when the silence stretched to the sight of Donna’s raised eyebrow. He gestured to the Harrises. “We’ll talk, and then … I’ll let you know. But they’re Kent and Nell Harris. Uh, Kent Alexander and Penelope Autumn, nee Green.”

Donna blinked. “Why do you think I need to know? That’s Mart and Ellie.”

“Who told you?” Kent cut in.

Owen shrugged. “I’ve known this whole time. I probably could’ve looked you up and found you, but I didn’t want to leave a trail.”

“Wait, you could have looked them up at any time?” Donna demanded. “You just—we missed their wedding, Owen Nicholas! They missed Lizzie and John’s wedding, and Terry and Sam’s, and … the grandkids! They’ve never even met their nieces and nephews! And you’re saying all this time—”

“We’ll talk,” Owen cut in, leaning forward to pick up his phone and sending things sliding. “Look, honey, someone’s at the door—I think it’s the agent who was handling their case, so I’ll have to call you back. Love you.” He ended the video call without waiting to hear anything else and sat very straight with his phone in both hands, not looking at them. “Sorry. I didn’t—I should’ve known. She …” Owen looked at his son. “She never understood why you had to leave.”

Kent’s right arm was still around Nell, but he reached over to take her left hand with his own.

“She … Donna …” Owen sighed and licked his lips and decided to move from the couch to the chair, which he shifted a bit before sitting down so he could face them better. “I think she understood that someone was after you—after your friends,” he explained to Nell, choosing his words slowly, “but she also thought that … if you left … then whoever it was wouldn’t have any reason to come after Ma— Kent.”

“So I stole her son,” Nell concluded. It wasn’t an entirely original thought, but really, she figured she’d stolen Kent from his entire family.

Owen smiled lopsidedly. “Stole his heart, maybe. But he had yours, so we should probably call that a trade.”

Kent squeezed Nell again, but she really didn’t know what to say.

“She just … she’s going to need time. Time to be mad at me, and time to realize that changing what sound comes out of her mouth to get your attention is small potatoes when it means you’ll show up for reunions and any other big family events. I just …” Owen shrugged. “I’m just overwhelmed that it’s all a possibility. At this point … after all these years?” He shook his head slowly. “I figured letters was all we’d ever have.”

Chapter Thirty-Three – coming February 2

Pending – Chapter Thirty-One

Brandon frowned at the photo of C. J. O’Connell, aka Bentley Beckett. “Wait, who’s this guy in the book?”

Art looked toward the back room where Adam and Kent hadn’t emerged yet. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Suit would prefer it if we didn’t make any assumptions about the book.”

Nell snorted and wrapped both hands around her mug. She’d made herself a mocha. “That’s the author.”

“The au …” Brandon blinked, then bent over her phone again.

Art tilted his head. “So I think we can say that’s Cal, at least in his own mind.”

“You don’t look surprised,” she murmured, raising her drink for a sip.

Her boss shrugged. “Once you accept a basic premise, a lot of pieces fall into place. O’Connell’s writing about a real woman who got away, check. So Cal’s his self-insert into the fanfiction of his own life.” He raised an eyebrow. “And Rosie’s not a serial killer.”

“There isn’t a serial killer,” Brandon protested.

Nell set the mug down and reached over to tap the side of her phone so she wouldn’t change the picture showing. “This guy is.”

Brandon held it up like she just needed to look again. “You’re saying this guy killed your friends.”

She nodded. She didn’t want to say it, but two of them had certainly been murdered. Someone was behind it, and Beckett’s behavior was definitely suspicious.

God, one of Kent’s dad’s friends let himself get beat up over this? If they all sent Beckett after Hillier, then why weren’t they keeping an eye on his house? Surely somebody could’ve stepped in before the freaking hospital had to get involved. You only needed one swing to get in the assault with a deadly weapon thing, right? Someone didn’t have to actually almost die.

“There’s an FBI agent who didn’t want you to see that photo,” Art pointed out. “Something’s up, and it’s big, so memorize the face and keep an eye out for it, because that face has a habit of circling Nell and deciding she doesn’t need people in her life.”

Brandon used the phone to point to the door leading to the back. “How long has Kent been in your life?” he asked Nell.

She shrugged, mostly to stall. Since I was nineteen was the truth, but they thought they’d known her since she was eighteen. She had to do the math instead. “Since 2016.” God, which made her what in their minds—fifteen? A fifteen-year-old, meeting a twenty-five-year-old, and why had Kent agreed to such a large age gap?

Art nudged her foot under the table. It wasn’t quite a kick. From his smirk, she figured he was doing the same math, and remembering Kent’s headcanon about Rosie’s boyfriend.

Brandon shook his head. “Man, none of this adds up.”

“No,” she agreed. “It shouldn’t, actually. That’s kind of the point.”

The door jingled, and Nell waved for Art to stay seated, because it was Mary. She got up, but paused when Mary greeted her with, “Lots of dark cars with tinted windows out there today. I feel like I’m in a spy movie.”

Nell looked to the large front windows, but she hadn’t seen any pass by. Granted, she hadn’t been out here the whole time, but since she’d been sitting here with Art and Brandon … she moved closer to the window, almost unconsciously hugging the wall to keep from giving someone a clear shot. Eyes, camera, gun … it didn’t matter.

Adam’s car was parked out there, and of course it was a dark one with tinted windows. It wasn’t like Adam was undercover or anything, but it was the sort of car that called attention to itself and warned you that someone official was driving. He’d only ever come alone to see them, and if he had a partner, they would’ve come in the same car, anyway, so …

Beckett was probably in Iowa. Adam said the address he got was hours from here, but it wasn’t inconceivable he would’ve passed near Colchester if he was headed from Kalamazoo to someplace further west. It wasn’t the direct route, of course, but a man who’d beaten up a federal agent probably wasn’t interested in direct routes as much as avoiding being spotted. Say, by someone in a dark car with tinted windows.

Gacy drove something that looked like an undercover cop car. When he was getting ready to dump one of his victim’s bodies, he’d cruised past a bridge and heard radio chatter about an unmarked being in the area. They’d seen him and thought he was a cop, so it wasn’t exactly unprecedented that Beckett would drive a dark car with tinted windows.

Mary joined her. “See, that’s one of them.”

“I know who drove that one. It’s been here a while.”

“Huh.” Mary tilted her head. “There’s at least one more, then. Did we have an alien spaceship landing? Any, what do you call them, travelers?”

“Little green men?” Art suggested.

She shook her head, not looking at him. “That’s the old term.”

Nell glanced over at Mary, but she wasn’t sure how to ask what the non-racist phrase was these days. It wasn’t creatures from another planet that had her worried, anyway. Really, there was only one creature on this planet at the top of her mind, but … hours away. Hillier got put in the hospital, but he said he’d given the wrong address.

Still an Iowa address.

“Look, there,” Mary added, nodding as a similar-looking car pulled in from the other direction, moving slowly, and then edged over to the curb across the street and parked.

“Nell?” Art asked, and from the corner of her eye she saw him take her phone from Brandon and come up to the other window, just to the side of the door, like he wanted to be sure he could go back and forth between the screen and the face of the man getting out of the car.

He was too old, for one thing. Beckett was maybe thirty, but the man across the way, scanning the buildings on their side of the street as he reached back in for a messenger bag, was likely near sixty. A fit sixty, but this was broad daylight, and that wasn’t stage makeup. His hair was dark and threaded with gray, which they could see better when he turned his head to check the traffic before crossing the street and angling toward the front door of Pending.

Nell’s heart tried to drop into her stomach, but her stomach dropped into her shoes.

“Nell?” Brandon said sharply, also getting up. He frowned, though, because no, this man wasn’t Beckett.

“Kent,” she croaked, then shook her head and tried to turn to call toward the back room, but her eyes stuck on the man who’d just reached this sidewalk. “Kent!”

The man started to open the door at a normal speed and then paused, slowing, when he realized that he was confronted by a group of people. His eyes passed over all of them quickly, bright and assessing, but there wasn’t anyone behind the counter, so he calculated and looked at Art. “Sorry, uh … I’m looking for Adam Scott. That’s his car out there.”

Kent swung open the back door and did the same sweep to see what was happening, then … froze.

Art frowned, glancing back at him, then to the newcomer, then to Nell. “Nell?”

“Nell?” the man echoed, slowly turning to look at her. Rather, his head turned slowly, but his eyes finally pulled away from Kent as he looked at her face and not just her hair and her clothes. “Oh my God, Nell!” He moved to hug her, which was wrong, because he should’ve hugged Kent first, and he shouldn’t even be here, and Nell wasn’t used to dad hugs. She figured Gran had kept her up on the whole mom hug side of things, but dad hugs were foreign.

Art started to ask something, maybe if she was okay, but then Kent joined them, and one of the man’s arms released her to go around him and pull them both in, squashed together, and she was hidden down here because both of them were tall, with the same broad shoulders, and a lot of the same facial features, and maybe it was okay, but also maybe …

Kent pulled back first. “Dad, what …?”

“They got him.” Owen shook his head, looking back and forth between the two of them, maybe trying to overlay the faces he knew with the ones he saw now, unable to keep from grinning. “They got him. I was here—well, nearby, they wouldn’t let me be part of it—but they got him, and they told me to come talk to Adam Scott, so I called, and they said he was out, so I explained who I was, and they said to come here, to Colchester, and …”

“I’m Adam Scott,” Adam said, sounding miffed.

“Are you?” Even though he probably didn’t want to, Owen let go of the two of them and offered Adam his hand. “Owen Cooper. I owe you a world of thanks.”

“Owen …?” Adam shook his head and his frown suddenly blossomed into shock. “You’re …?”

Owen grinned. “Kent’s dad? Yeah.”

“Kent’s last name is Harris,” Mary pointed out. “So’s Nell’s. Art, can I do my order?”

“Sure, Mary.” Art nodded for the others to take a seat, or at least get out of the way.

“They got him,” Owen told Adam. “Just a couple hours ago. He finally showed, they got him, he’s in custody. It’s over.” He turned back to Kent and Nell. “It’s over.”

Kent guided her into a chair before she collapsed, but even in her shock she thought his knees had gone a little wobbly, too. “You’re sure?” Kent cleared the gravel out of his throat. “Positive?”

“Fingerprints match,” he said, and he even laughed. “He had his ID on him, too, but they did prints, and bingo. It’s him. We’ve got him.” If possible, the grin got broader. “You can come home.”

Uh, hold up.

“They’re already home,” Mary told Owen. She’d drifted over after filling up her coffee. “Why do you want them to leave?”

Kent’s hand found Nell’s knee under the table and gave it a squeeze, but she wasn’t sure which way it was supposed to go: if he wanted to reassure her that he’d correct his dad, or if he didn’t want her to get upset at what Mary said.

“We’ll figure it out,” Owen said, waving either Mary or her comment away with a dismissive hand. “The point is … my God.” He shook his head, swiping at the tears in his eyes. “Just look at you two. It’s finally over.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Pending – Chapter Thirty

Part Five: News From Home

Adam took a slow breath, both hands raised. “They didn’t use your dad’s real name.”

Kent blinked, which at least helped him look less like he wanted to throttle the other man. “What?”

“They …” Adam looked over to Art and Brandon, then back to Kent and Nell.

“For fuck’s sake,” Kent sighed, lowering his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. “If we’re in danger, then we’re in danger at work, too.”

“You shouldn’t be. Aren’t.” Adam shook his head a little, closing his eyes like he was in physical pain. “Hypothetically. If …”

Brandon snorted without amusement. “You want us to go to the back while you get this all sorted out?”

“Can’t,” Art argued. “Someone has to be paying attention in case we get customers.”

“Adam doesn’t want to go in the back because I threatened to break his arm with the dough mixer,” Nell explained, taking Kent’s hand and giving him a tug all the same.

“If he doesn’t spit it all out, you won’t need the dough mixer,” her husband muttered, gesturing for Adam to go first.

He did, turning and holding up his hands again until the doors shut. “I was only just told all this, and it happened a couple days ago, but: they got O’Connell’s real name and planned it all out. Two of them went to his house and asked him to come in and talk about it, and yeah, they planted the whole ‘Rosie’s the real killer’ thing, and buttered him up about connecting all five murders, and one of them dropped a name. Hillier.”

Kent frowned.

“It had to be an actual agent,” Adam continued, “because they weren’t sure if he’d check the WayBack machine to see if the website was just updated. Beckett,” he added, to Kent, realizing he hadn’t been there earlier. “Bentley Beckett. That’s his name.”

“So they told this Bentley Beckett that his Rosie …?”

“Was the real killer, yeah. To throw him off. And one of them ranted about how his ‘Rosie’ had a boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s dad was still in the agency even though he’d illegally helped the two of them disappear …”

Nell didn’t have to reach far for Kent’s hand, and he gripped hers tightly.

“And one of them dropped the name,” Adam continued. “Because Hillier volunteered. He doesn’t have kids, he’s divorced, it’s just him in the house, so all they had to do was photoshop some pictures and wait for Beckett to take the bait.”

“Is …” Nell tried to swallow. “Isn’t that entrapment?”

“Not at all.” Adam recovered enough to look a little smug. “They weren’t trying to get him to confess to it. They said oh, he did such great work in his research—could he provide some insight into the mind of the real killer?”

Kent switched Nell’s hand to his other one so he could put an arm around her. “You mean Nell.”

“Yes. His only known weakness.”

God, he almost sounded like he was talking about his favorite childhood superhero.

“And it worked, because Beckett went to Hillier’s house, and now …”

“Now?” Nell prompted hoarsely.

“Well. He’s going to be fine, and if nothing else, we can charge Beckett with assaulting a federal agent with a deadly weapon.”

“Wait, you …” Nell sagged against Kent. “You set an agent up and he almost got killed?”

Adam held up his hand. “He volunteered to do it—for you, by the way—and he knew the risks. And he’ll be fine. He’s in stable condition and expected to improve.”

“You …”

Kent locked both arms around her, standing steady. “Nate?”

“Sorry?”

“Hillier. Nate Hillier.”

“Uh …” The pause was long enough that Nell felt a dozen different emotions about Adam. Some agent risked his life for her and in the middle of retelling it, Adam couldn’t even remember his first name? “Yeah, Nathan J. Hillier.”

Kent nodded, lowering his head to rest his cheek against her hair. “I know him. He’s one of my dad’s best friends. I’m not surprised.”

“Okay, but does your dad also have the kind of job where he might get killed at any moment?” she asked, trying not to snap it, but her voice was shriller than usual. “Because I always got the impression he was kind of a desk guy.”

Kent shrugged. “We don’t talk about what Dad does. What happened with Nate?”

“Beckett, uh … located his house. He drove his company van, which we’ve got on camera, and apparently stopped to ask for directions.”

“Apparently?” Did that mean the agent who’d volunteered to pose as Kent’s dad hadn’t been conscious since then?

“He said he was lost and looking for a specific address, but we assume he was ready to use any excuse to drive by Hillier’s house and try to talk to him. Which was why it had to be a single agent,” Adam added. “They didn’t have time to update the website or make any sort of address changes on a larger scale, so Beckett had to be able to look him up in, say, the phone book and get the right information.”

It still sounded like entrapment to Nell.

“He could’ve just shown up and asked some questions,” Adam argued at whatever he saw on her face. “Out of curiosity, or because he could use some of the information on his book tour. He didn’t have to …”

“What did he do?” Kent asked in the voice that yes, really made people think he was a Hell’s Angel.

Adam cleared his throat. “Brass knuckles and a switchblade. But he didn’t really use the knife.”

“Didn’t really?” It came out of Nell like a laugh, but come on. How did someone not really use a switchblade?

“He threatened Hillier with the switchblade,” Adam corrected, and if he was ever put up on the witness stand, she hoped he got some more training about using a poker face. Clearly Adam thought this was an excellent and wonderful story and they were fixating on all the wrong parts. “He mostly used the brass knuckles.”

Nell’s hand went up to her face, fingertips on her cheekbones. How delicate was a human face? Or had Beckett gone for the torso and internal injuries?

“The point is, Hillier knew he had to play it right to make it believable.”

“To make what believable?” Kent demanded.

“Your address.”

Silence.

“God, no, your—a fake address. A safe house a couple hundred miles from here. I don’t know why they still picked Iowa, except I don’t think they know you’re here, so maybe it was just a weird coincidence. But Hillier had an address memorized, and if he just gave it up right away, Beckett wouldn’t believe him.”

Okay but if he’d given it up right away, he could’ve avoided the whole assault with a deadly weapon business.

Kent shook his head a little, like he’d caught her thought. “Nate would risk himself for us. Get the conviction for the assault, if nothing else. That at least buys us time. So he showed up at the safe house and you’ve got him? Because maybe you should’ve led with that.”

“Uh …”

“Wait, all that and you don’t even have him?” Nell gripped Kent’s arm with both hands.

“Not yet, no. He, uh … didn’t take the direct route, so … we’re not sure where he is.”

“He …” Nell shook her head, but that didn’t help things fall into place. “So why are you here?”

Adam sighed. “Because they’re going to put it out on the news that an agent was assaulted, and identify the suspect, and your dad didn’t want you thinking it was actually him.”

Nell closed her eyes because it wasn’t like the news would call him the father of Rosie’s boyfriend or something. “You’ve identified him, but now we’ve got no idea where he is, because two agents alerted him to the fact that you’re on to him and told him to come to Iowa.”

“Nowhere near here in Iowa,” Adam protested. “And I didn’t have a damn thing to do with this—they only just told me about it today.”

Because they were going to put something on the news, since so much had gone wrong.

Kent squeezed Nell tighter for a moment. “We need that picture of him. Beckett.”

“Why—?”

“Because our bosses are out there, and they need to know it’s a problem if they see that guy hanging around.”

A muscle in Adam’s jaw twitched. “I’m not happy that you’re sharing this information with anyone else, in any context.”

Said the man who was not actually trained to hide people in witness protection. Nell tried not to scowl. “Yeah, well, there’s a lot we’re not happy about, either.”

“You said it’s going to be on the news,” Kent argued more quietly, if not more calmly. “We’ll just tell them then. Let them draw their own conclusions about why they should keep an eye out for this guy who assaulted a fed with a deadly weapon.”

Adam shook his head. “Neither of you get it. You’ve had these identities for years now, and you want to throw it all away? You can’t go back to who you were, and you’re not getting us involved again. As far as the bureau’s concerned, your dad took things a step too far, but they’re leaving it … as long as nothing else comes up. If you start undoing all that, you’re not just losing us. You’re going to lose every single friend and connection you’ve made here, because basically you’ve done nothing for years but lie your asses off.”

Art understands. Nell wasn’t sure that Brandon did, but she could see Art got it. He was actually comforted by it, if only because he didn’t have to keep thinking Kent was a groomer. “The whole reason Kent’s dad did this is because there’s someone out there hurting people I care about.” God, she hadn’t expected her voice to waver this much. “If he’s out there, and now he’s even closer, then Art and Brandon are two of those people who need to be on their guard.”

“You know who to look out for,” Kent added, also softly. “And we know you can’t be everywhere at once. Give them a chance, will you?”

Adam stayed still for quite a while, resuming the fed mask and showing nothing, but then he took a slow breath, nodded, and got out his phone.

Chapter Thirty-One

Pending – Chapter Twenty-Nine

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It was the same kind of lamp on either side of the queen-sized bed, and was that cohesive interior decorating or laziness? It helped Ben, certainly, since he could bug either one just as quickly, but he paused long enough to check the bedside tables. One was clean on top, but he opened the drawers to find a half-empty box of condoms and a glasses case. She didn’t wear glasses—unless that was part of the new and improved identity—so he crossed to the other side, which held two library books on top and some earplugs and a travel packet of Kleenex in the drawer. Really, it didn’t matter which side he picked, because it would cover the same room, but he chose this one.

One of the books was The Five, which he thought had been a big deal a couple of years back and was about Jack the Ripper, and the other was a romance. At least, Ben thought it was a romance: Love in the Time of Serial Killers. The cover on that one was cartoonish, so it was probably more about the love than the serial killers. That didn’t matter, as long as he left them with the correct one on top and didn’t shift them too far.

They each had the knotted silk cord of a bookmark poking out the top, marking how far she was. Was it weird to read two books at the same time? Maybe it was easier because one was fiction and one wasn’t, but it seemed weird to do that if it was just for fun. For class, sure, she read whatever was assigned, week by week, but … two library books at the same time? Ben shook his head and realized he was smiling a little. Man, she sure was something.

He really wanted to go through the dresser in the room when he was done, but keeping clothes in the same order—or the same mess—was a slightly different prospect than making sure books were still on the table, and the last thing he wanted to do was open up a drawer of tighty-whities and get confronted with the boyfriend’s skid marks. The condoms were honestly bad enough, thank you, but at least that meant Ben didn’t have to worry that she was pregnant and they’d have to deal with that during their flight.

Blinking, he froze, because he’d never actually thought that she might have kids. Clearly she didn’t—there would have to be signs of that around the apartment, right? Even just in the rooms he’d been in so far?—but it never even occurred to him. That was the right age for getting married and having babies, if he could believe the stories he heard, but there were so many reasons she wouldn’t have joined in on the white dress and diapers brigade. Ben wasn’t there, for one, and he didn’t want kids, for another. He quite simply didn’t want to share her.

Once the idea was in his head, though, he had to hustle out of this bedroom and check the spare, just to make sure there wasn’t a crib in it. He even looked around the desk to make sure there wasn’t a bassinet or something, just in case, even though they’d also have to have a changing table and diapers and toys and clothes and who knew what all else. There was a reason you threw baby showers: babies needed tons of stuff, and all of that added up pretty quick.

There was nothing, thank God. The lamps were different in here, so he debated, but figured he was probably pressing his luck by being here this long and leaving two when he knew the best way to install them. The most overlookable way. After all, he hadn’t been caught with these yet, and they were much better than the microphone-only ones he used to use back in the day. Back when he first met her.

Still he hesitated, lingering, because this wasn’t the bedroom she clearly had to share with the boyfriend. This was space she might inhabit alone, and it was more cluttered, more homey than the living room area. Maybe he sat there to watch his sports teams play on the television that was rather too large for the space, eating his couch snacks and cheering like he had some personal stake in the score. Maybe he was the sort of person who said we when he talked about the teams, as though he played well enough to make it on the field and get a number.

There was no point in speculating about the boyfriend because all Ben had was the photo of Hillier’s family when all his kids were kids, and the idea that maybe the oldest boy was the one he was looking for. Dark hair and dark eyes. Maybe the teeth had been fixed with braces, either shortly after the picture was taken or after he disappeared with her. It was hard to judge how a child would age, even if you’d seen how his own father aged. You really needed both grandfathers to help calculate how his face and hairline and build would change.

There was a cardigan thrown over the back of the desk chair, just a cheap thing with a bunch of brass snaps, the kind you could buy in a dozen colors off Amazon, and Ben leaned down to press his face to it and inhale. He was trying to separate all the aromas—earthy, woodsy, body wash, perfume?—when he heard a key in the lock of the front door. It was all the way at the front of the apartment, and he was at the back, but it was quiet enough for him to hear it.

His head turned, but otherwise he didn’t move. There wasn’t a direct sightline into this room, so he had some time, but he heard voices.

“— wouldn’t worry about it,” a deep male one said, followed by a jingle. There were hooks by the door, so maybe that was his keys.

“You always side with them.”

Now Ben straightened, heart pounding. That voice. Her voice? Why did he question it? It had been five years. People changed. Maybe she’d taken up smoking.

“I side with them,” the male voice responded, just too strained to be entirely patient, “because they’ve always been right.”

“They’ve never head to deal with something like this before!”

Silence. He wished he could see them. What was happening in the silence?

Then she spoke again, smaller this time: “I’m sorry.”

“I told you not to raise your voice to me.”

Oh, shit. Alarm bells. Code red. The boyfriend was that kind of man. He looked around quickly, searching for something to replace the crowbar—which, at least, it seemed neither of them had noticed—because of course he didn’t have it with him. He should’ve brought it in.

Ben had never imagined she’d have a kid, and he’d never really thought she’d have an abusive boyfriend, but those were heavy footsteps that made him think of a man in work boots and her defenseless bare feet.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered this time. It was barely audible.

“You think you can get away with it in front of other people,” the boyfriend said, voice low and measured. His words were carefully spaced in a way that was its own threat: listen, and listen well, because this was not a man who liked repeating himself. “You think you can be an uppity little bitch …”

Bitch was emphasized with a smack and a whimper, and Ben grabbed the floor lamp, ripping the plug out of the wall socket, and charged.

This is the end of Part Four

Chapter Thirty

Pending – Chapter Twenty-Eight

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Ben hadn’t slept. He couldn’t. It wasn’t an apartment building but a duplex, and the number clearly designated her as living on the top floor, and there’d been lights on up there. People moving around—two of them, one of them clearly taller and bigger than the other. He hadn’t seen anyone going into the side door that went up the stairs, but he’d been able to catch sight of what was parked out front: a single car. Iowa license plate—no surprise there—and he could get the number later if he walked by during the daylight hours.

He knew where she was. It was nearly a confirmed sighting. But it was dusk, time for dinner and then bed, and he couldn’t just go knock on their door now. Especially because it was clearly a they, what with the shadows on the blinds. Maybe the boyfriend worked the night shift somewhere.

That was too much to hope for. His best bet was waiting until after 9 and then swinging by again to see what he could see: if the car was there or gone. If the shade was up and anyone was looking out. It was possible both of them worked, so the apartment would be empty, but …

But that wasn’t such a problem, either. If Ben could get in, he could place a lens or two. Catch some video as well as some audio.

It wasn’t so much about learning the names they’d picked—or, in her case, had forced on her—but learning their habits and schedules. If he heard them talk about work plans and knew she’d be alone tomorrow, for example—assuming he planted the bugs today, in an hour or so when he went over there—then he’d know when to show up. For the last time, that was. Taking her and the bug with him. Today was for leaving the bug if she wasn’t home.

He supposed he’d already made up his mind, then.

The instant coffee wasn’t great, but it was caffeine, and at least he had a microwave to heat up the water for it. He didn’t think he’d be able to put on a normal performance at the café to get any of the good stuff, and he definitely looked like he’d just pulled an all-nighter, even though it wasn’t intentional. Ben would rather be well-rested, just in case she was there and they needed to get a bunch of driving in as soon as possible.

On second thought, he shouldn’t have unpacked everything, but putting it back in his suitcase and getting things in his car meant he was taking up time and guaranteed he wouldn’t arrive at the apartment too soon. This way he’d be after 10, so it didn’t matter if the boyfriend didn’t start work at 9.

The boyfriend might be home. That was all right, too. Ben had a crowbar that would slip up his sleeve, and he’d practiced letting it fall just long enough to grab it, raise it, and swing.

Only if it was the boyfriend, of course. He wasn’t about to swing at her.

Plus, if the outer door at the bottom of the stairs was unlocked, he wouldn’t even have to keep it up his sleeve. He could carry it up the stairs and lean it against the wall next to the door at the top, where he could grab it if he needed it, but where he could also ignore it if, say, she answered and she was alone. He didn’t have to draw attention to it, and he could hustle her out and pass it without her seeing it. Just because he’d killed for her didn’t mean she had to know for sure that he was willing to do it again.

Ben parked down the street, which was why the crowbar went up his sleeve, and walked as easily as he could up the sidewalk, which was buckled and broken through with weeds. He had to be careful not to trip because he wasn’t really set to catch himself, not with one arm that wouldn’t bend, but there wasn’t anyone else out. People watching from upper windows, maybe, so he couldn’t relax completely, but no one on the street.

It was a risk, just reaching for the knob like he expected the door to open, but it paid off. He didn’t just collide with a locked door, hand slipping. Ben opened it and went inside, nice and easy, and made sure it latched behind him. He didn’t even realize how tight the muscles in his chest were until he exhaled and it kept going. Letting the crowbar slide out of his sleeve, he rested the end on the ground, wiped both palms on his jeans, and picked it up casually in one hand. Casually, but ready to make things less than casual.

The stairwell was claustrophobic, clearly added as an afterthought to turn a house into a duplex, narrow and with a low ceiling. It wasn’t good for swinging, so Ben quickly started on up, not sure about how much things would improve at the top but, at least if they were on the same level, he could hold it more like a golf club and aim for the knees.

The boyfriend would scream. They’d have to be fast.

That would be okay. He’d made it out of tight spots before.

There was a slightly wider space at the top of the stairs, but it was cut off by a coat tree and a shoe rack. A shoe rack with a gap on the top shelf where a pair of women’s Skechers were off to one side, but there wasn’t a coordinating pair of men’s shoes to go with it. Ben considered his own boots, then decided against the delay of taking them off. Leaning the crowbar to the right of the door, he took inhaled slowly, smoothed the front of his sweatshirt, and raised a hand to knock.

It was impossible not to hold his breath as he waited for the sound of footsteps, counting off his heartbeats and trying to convert them into seconds to figure out when he could knock again. It was certainly possible that she had more shoes than fit on the rack, or that the top was where hers went and his usually sat on the floor, or … well, anything. The car wasn’t there, so maybe the apartment was empty. That was what Ben had planned for, but that was really second-best, and he’d really been hoping …

He knocked again, breathing more easily this time. His heart was still pounding, but he didn’t expect her to open the door and smile politely and then … however she’d react when she recognized him. He tried not to picture it, because expectation led to disappointment.

No one was coming. Casting a look back down the tunnel of stairs, Ben first tried the door—imagine starting to pick it and realizing the door was already open—and then knelt in front of it, pulling the lockpicking kit out of his sweatshirt pocket. He didn’t want to scrub the lock, because that was inelegant, and doing that would be admitting he was too wound up to finesse it. He could maintain control, because he had to maintain control, and if he couldn’t do this one … simple … thing …

The door opened. Good. He carefully put the picks back in their place, snapped the case shut, and returned it to his pocket as he got up. Absently he wiped his boots on the mat, because he wasn’t going to take them off now, either. If he had to run, he’d want them on. If she was just out shopping, for example, it probably wouldn’t be good to be discovered here, because startled people weren’t always predictable. Fight or flight kicked in, and he didn’t want her feeling sorry later for what she might do.

First Ben stepped inside and made sure the door was locked again behind him. No sense in leaving it wide open. If she did come home, she’d get the key out, and then wonder why it was unlocked, and if she’d forgotten and left it that way, and he didn’t want her to worry. The whole point was that he was the end of her worries.

He looked around the entryway, which was actually the main room of the apartment, with the kitchen off to one side and the little dining room set sort of hovering between the tile and the living room section. There was a lamp on the table by the couch, with the sort of lampshade he liked, because he’d already perfected how to attach one of his bugs with the way it unscrewed, and how to position it, and all the rest. Ben even pulled out a pair of thin cotton gloves before getting to work, reminding himself to wipe down the doorknob on his way out. Both sides.

He should’ve worn the gloves earlier, but he didn’t like them for picking, and he wasn’t going to knock on her door wearing gloves. He might as well put on a ski mask and a sign saying he was here to steal whatever he could get.

Carefully he returned the lamp to its spot, making sure the cord went over the edge of the table in the same place and that it still worked. Not like he might’ve broken it, but he wanted to be sure nobody would be fiddling with it anytime soon. If it was long after, that was one thing, but right now time was of the essence. Really, he only needed a little more of it. That was one room done, and it was the main room, so he took a look around to see … well. Just to see.

There weren’t any photos. None in frames on flat surfaces, and none hung on the walls. There were various prints of famous paintings—posters of paintings, really, in frames—but that was it. Ben really only had those collages and stuff in his house because he thought everyone expected you to have them: happy moments, people you were supposed to miss, important travel destinations, that kind of thing. The feds had certainly ogled every single one on their way by, and he supposed he’d studied the ones in Hillier’s apartment, so maybe he wasn’t one to talk,

He wasn’t one to hesitate, either, so he left the newly-bugged lamp and went back toward the bedroom.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

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Pending – Chapter Twenty-Seven

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Ben ended up asking the barista about hotels and getting a couple options, as well as a weird look when he pulled out his notebook to write down addresses instead of looking at his phone, but that was how things went. Maybe he’d be remembered for his lack of phone, but that was it. His face was nondescript, his t-shirt and hoodie both solid colors without any markings, and there wasn’t even a credit card to link him to a name. He wrote down the addresses and strolled up and down the rest of what seemed to be downtown before heading back to his car. There wasn’t much to it, but at least there was a corner store if he wanted to pick up some staples.

In the car he pulled out his map and compared addresses to see if there was any reason to pick a hotel closer to her apartment, or if he might as well go for any of them. None of them were nearby, so he selected one that didn’t have a name he recognized—although he could get surprised when he pulled in and saw that it was a Hilton property or something like that—and figured out his route.

Asking directions here was not part of the plan. He didn’t need to talk to someone—like Hillier—and he didn’t want to be remembered. Just another guy, maybe on a fishing trip, or … ugh. He couldn’t pass it off like he was here to golf. He didn’t know the first thing about the game, and he didn’t have any clubs. Didn’t have any fishing gear, either. Wildlife photographer? Did Iowa even have wildlife?

That didn’t matter. If anyone asked if he was here for business or pleasure, he’d say business, and maybe sigh, and that would be that. Clearly he wasn’t even staying at a good hotel, so …

It took Ben two hotels, which was fine, because it meant he got to drive around and see a bit more. It was just the sort of place he’d expect to find her, too: small town, middle of flyover country, a quaint sort of throwback. Not that she’d swap out her jeans and hoodies for a housewife dress or anything, but there was just something comforting about the whole thing. A nothing ever happens here sort of feeling that would be good for her after everything that happened so quickly in one year. And the 50s vibe meant he could hope that, even if she had married the boyfriend, they’d have separate beds, kept apart.

It was a vain hope, because of course any boyfriend would want her physically as well as all the other ways a man could want a woman, and Ben couldn’t really blame the guy, but he could be jealous. Plus a marriage license was just an annoying legal entanglement that would have to be dealt with.

Okay, that meant disappearing again, on the run from all of the FBI this time instead of just most of it, but … they could do it. They’d figure it out. The main point was that this flight would be together. And there wouldn’t be separate beds.

Right, focus. He pulled into a parking spot in front of a motel that looked like it should be covered in one big spider web—clearly they needed some 50s housewives with feather dusters—and decided to try his luck at the front desk. The teenager, very much not a 50s throwback, barely even looked at Ben, which was good, because he put a fake name on the form alongside the number of the stolen license plate, and exchanged cash for a key. If he needed more than three nights, he’d extend it, but for now he had a base of operations that opened directly onto the parking lot, so there was no need to pass other doors—or to have other customers, if there were any, pass his—so he went out, moved his sedan to the proper space, grabbed his suitcase, and went in to investigate.

Sometimes even places like these had little pamphlets about things to do in the area, but no dice. The television worked, and looked like it cost more than the rest of the room combined, so he found a news station and turned it down low. Maybe an FBI agent in Michigan wouldn’t make national news, but he hadn’t checked in with Thom recently, so he needed to know if there was any buzz about that. He might need to use the personal hotspot he’d bought—not entirely sure if those were untraceable or what, but first, he hadn’t been sure if his hotel would have Wi-Fi, and second, that seemed at least a bit more anonymous—to check in and say hey, yeah, things are fine.

If there wasn’t anything on the news, Ben would probably have to email Thom, anyway, because hey, he was supposed to be gearing up for a national reading and signing tour. Thom expected him to have butterflies—which he would, if he didn’t already have her address. If he didn’t already know where she was, just waiting for him. They’d leave here together, and fine, yeah, it would mean surrendering the sales from the book, but that was a small sacrifice compared to the ones he’d already made.

He turned down the sheets, but they at least seemed clean, and his skin didn’t crawl just looking at them, so that was a plus. Since he had the place for three days, he decided he might as well fully unpack to let his clothes air out and get rid of some of the fold lines. She wasn’t going to care, but she was perceptive, and noticed details a lot of people missed, so he wanted to show her that he knew. He could be just as meticulous.

The boyfriend, though. That kept sneaking back into his head. He’d managed to keep himself focused on driving, on getting here, but now, with this down time … with the television on low in the background, talking about things that didn’t interest Ben and didn’t matter to his world … the boyfriend crept back in.

Why hadn’t he known there was a boyfriend? He could swear that no man’s voice had ever been caught on his bug, but an internet boyfriend whose FBI dad swept in and rescued her like this just didn’t make sense. There had to be a deeper connection than that, or else this whole thing turned sour.

An internet boyfriend who used his dad’s position of power to basically kidnap a young woman who was emotionally unstable in that moment was not a good guy. And neither was his dad, unless the boyfriend inflated the story and the dad thought it really was true love. But even then, it left her alone, with these guys planning her future, and helpless.

But, if two people were actually dating, it didn’t make sense that the boyfriend was never around. Seriously never. She was alone when she moved in, and the only friends they had over were female. There wasn’t any boyfriend voice at all on the living room mic—just her phone calls, which, yeah, sure, ended with I love you a lot of the time, but the content was the kind she’d share with her grandma or long-distance friends.

She’d been easy and free with her I love yous. At first it bothered Ben, because how was someone supposed to know they were special if she said it to everyone, but then he sat with it a while and realized that she was just overflowing with love. There was so much of it, she had to give a bunch away or else she’d swell up and explode.

It wasn’t hard to accept that other guys would see that in her, and want to be a part of it. It wasn’t the idea of a boyfriend that threw Ben, but the fact of one. A boyfriend with a father so devoted that he misused his position to help make her disappear, no less. If it had just been a boyfriend … a college boy, probably, simply because those were the guys she met … then they couldn’t have slipped away so completely.

What had Ben written? A rock sinking to the bottom of a murky pond? He should’ve called her a diamond, really, but the murky pond was accurate. She was somewhere so far away from him that her light was swallowed up. Maybe she wasn’t even allowed to shine. Didn’t they tell people starting new lives to change as much as they could about themselves, so no one would make the connection because of habits or a hobby or something?

Maybe the boyfriend, inspired by the 50s atmosphere, made her stay at home all the time. She’d vacuum and iron his shirts and meet him at the door with a martini when he got back from work, whatever his work was, but never leave the house, not even to do the shopping. You didn’t have to these days, what with Amazon and everything else that would deliver. She could be a hermit, a shut-in, and maybe he’d be the first person other than the boyfriend she’d seen in years. God, thinking about it that way, he was really wasting time here. He could at least drive past the apartment building and see if he could guess which windows were theirs.

Hers. Which windows were hers.

Ben could get some staples for the hotel room, at any rate. Instant coffee, that kind of thing. It would give him a reason for the drive, and if he happened to circle around a bit, then clearly he’d gotten lost in a new area. So maybe he could pass by more than once.

The stupid book cover had done a number on him. Here he was, thinking he’d catch a glimpse of her silhouette and he’d just know. Even after all this time, he’d know.

Maybe he would. Maybe the romantics of the world all kept their beliefs because, every so often, it did work out that way for someone.

Maybe, this time, it would work out for them.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Pending – Chapter Twenty-Six

Part Four: The Saddest Experience

The fact that Thom made sure the FBI’s accusation of Rosie was in the news was helpful because Ben didn’t have to try to figure out digital access to keep up with it. Granted, everyone was looking at and talking about and commenting on those stories, but he didn’t want to connect with something attached to his real name and ping something somewhere. That sounded like a spy movie concern, not a real-world ability, but you never knew.

None of the papers Ben bought with cash mentioned anything about an FBI agent in Kalamazoo.

He’d gotten out of state on that first day, so that was probably why. And maybe he hadn’t actually killed him, but … those details were fuzzy. His hands were sore, his knuckles scabbed from rubbing against the inside of the sweaty garden gloves, but he didn’t think punching was all he’d done. When he got into those fogs, he could be … creative.

The drive wasn’t helping his sore back, and he preferred not to use cruise control, so his leg ached, too. Plus he wanted to avoid turnpikes, with their cameras and toll-takers—if there were still toll-takers who’d deal with cash and not just cameras that caught you if you didn’t have a Fast Pass—so the trip was longer than it normally would’ve been. He should’ve made it in a single day, easy, but with everything he wanted to avoid, he was pulling in late on the second day, grouchy from a night in a bad motel along with the drive.

There might have been bed bugs. He hadn’t thought ahead to buy one of those sleeping bag things the travel magazines advertised, so you never actually touched the mattress in a strange place, mostly because he hadn’t pictured himself staying somewhere that barely rated half a star. Ben tried telling himself that it was all in his head, and of course he was nervous, because he was heading to the small town where she lived. He was nervous because he was trying to figure out the best approach.

Once he arrived, he’d probably have to risk a Google search to see if his photo was out there yet. Thom said it wouldn’t be until his first event, but things had changed. If it wasn’t, then he could find a place to stay for the night, and casually scope out what there was to see. Not much, but that could play in his favor. If they happened to cross paths in the dinky little two-block downtown area, that would be perfect, but he couldn’t plan on that.

Ben didn’t try stopping anywhere for lunch because the last thing he needed was to send back a mostly full plate or to rush into the bathroom and throw up whatever he’d managed to force down. He made do with a gas station top-up and an assortment of things that looked less unappetizing than the others, but mostly coffee. The acid played hell with his stomach, but it was already a mess, and he needed to stay alert for the boring drive and in case he saw her on the street.

If she was alone, he could stop her. Ask her for directions to somewhere, the way he’d asked Hillier, to give her time to realize that yes, it was really him. It would be a complete surprise, so he couldn’t be hurt if she didn’t recognize him right away. He was supposed to be in Michigan, not Iowa, and she might panic when she realized. She couldn’t have a handler on her at all times, right? But she’d have to tell him where and when they could meet and properly talk if she was being watched.

If she wasn’t alone, he might still try asking, but having her realize in front of someone else—not the boyfriend not the boyfriend not the boyfriend—could be a problem. Of course one of them could always explain they were old friends and had known each other before, but he didn’t know what her cover story said about before. If he said they’d met in Michigan, but she’d told everyone she was from Wisconsin …

He wouldn’t run into her on the street. Ben kept telling himself that and hoping he was lying at the same time. He wouldn’t run into her on the street, so tonight he’d sleep in a motel—hopefully a step up from last night—and get out his map, or maybe buy a new map that zoomed in right here, and figure out his drive, or his walk, or where to drive to and start walking so he’d pass her apartment building.

The problem with the boyfriend—she didn’t have a boyfriend—was that he couldn’t just leave a note under the door or through the mail slot or whatever they had here and know that she’d be the first to find it. He didn’t even have a name for her, which was just sloppy thinking, but he’d been so focused on the where because he knew the who. He just didn’t know what everyone around her thought when they thought of her.

And thank God, the speed limit was dropping. Ben wasn’t on a main road, and he’d been keeping an eye on his trip odometer, but it was comforting to see the actual Earth match up with those calculations. Although it was also weird to pass a freaking golf course. Wasn’t Iowa supposed to be all corn? Who went to Iowa to play golf?

Not Ben, certainly. He’d never played golf in his life. Golf was bad for the ecosystem. Maybe they didn’t have to clear much of a natural environment out here in the middle of nowhere, but the care and maintenance of the grass … he clucked his tongue to himself as he drove by and switched his thoughts from fertilizer and water wastage to keeping an eye out for hotels, or at least some sort of local diner or something where he could get some dinner and ask about hotels.

As long as his face wasn’t out there yet. It would be best if he could find someplace with a public television permanently on the news, but that didn’t seem like something you’d find around here. In an airport, sure, but this was a small town, no matter how close to a city it was. If an hour or so counted as close.

This was the main road, so it did take him to the quaint little downtown area, which looked like it had been forgotten back in the fifties. Ben pulled into one of the slant parking spaces and tried to stifle a sigh at the fact that it had a number instead of an actual parking meter, but the machines generally took cash along with cards. He had a good amount of change, and he’d wipe the buttons down afterward.

If it had a camera, he’d just deal with it if he couldn’t cover it. He wasn’t wearing anything with his name on it today, but he also didn’t have a hat he could just pull down over his eyes or something … in order to look like someone who was trying to hide.

As Ben got out of the car, he saw a presumably homeless woman shuffling by. When she saw him looking at her, he nodded, but she jerked her head away and changed her course so she wouldn’t pass too close by him. He was pretty sure she was muttering to herself as she went, but that didn’t bother him. She was far too old for his interest, although … would she be homeless? If she’d run away from the boyfriend, then she would be, but if she’d run away from the boyfriend, then the address Hillier coughed up would be useless. She wouldn’t linger in the same small town, no matter how well that town served its unhoused population.

She was here. Hillier said she was here.

He set his sights on a storefront that looked like a diner, or maybe a café: a local place with a name he didn’t recognize instead of a chain. It wasn’t like chains wouldn’t take cash, but he always felt awkward when he went to order and didn’t know all the lingo. He’d stick out like a sore thumb. He might, anyway, since he wasn’t a local, but there just didn’t seem to be the same pressure at a little place instead of something all fluorescently lit and with sleek tabletops and uncomfortable chairs that didn’t want you to linger.

Ben didn’t know how to describe the lights here—they hung down and had shades—and the tabletops were old wood and looked scarred by frequent use and, maybe, the ghosts of old initials. The chairs might not be super comfortable, but they were wood and metal, not plastic. He approached the counter with its bakery case and looked up at the chalkboard menu while the barista—were men still baristas, or did the ending change?—finished with the customer in front of him.

The man greeted him with a smile, and Ben ordered a latte and a sandwich, negotiating the string of follow-up questions: dairy milk was fine. No, no flavor. Yes to all the toppings. For here. Sheesh. Maybe this was why he so rarely went out. It wasn’t just the chains that could annoy you.

Ben paid, accepted his change, and confronted the tip jar. It asked him to decide which of the animated characters was most likely to take over the world, and he didn’t recognize either, so he paused long enough for the barista to turn away before tucking a couple bucks into the left slot. That way he wouldn’t have to make even the smallest of small talk by admitting yeah, that one rocked.

He waited for his coffee and took a seat along one of the walls, sipping absently as he watched the front windows. It wasn’t like he was going to see her walking by, but …

“Here you go,” the barista announced, setting Ben’s sandwich down in front of him and making him jump. “Sorry, man. Head in the clouds.”

At least he didn’t have to respond, since the guy had to report to his post behind the register for the next customer, so he picked up his sandwich, took a bite, and tried to just … let things happen.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Pending – Chapter Twenty-Five

Adam took a deep breath and ran his hand over his hair. Nell couldn’t tell if this was him stalling or him figuring out what to say, so she pressed her lips together and crossed her arms and tried to wait.

“C. J. O’Connell’s real name is Bentley Beckett.”

Nell blinked, then frowned. “Pretty sure I’d remember a Bentley Beckett.”

“He goes by Ben, and it’s possible you never really met him. He was a janitor and worked for the company that cleaned the units between renters.”

Her frown deepened. “So … if I never met him …?”

“We’re back to him bugging the rooms. He’s had his own business for a while now, so we don’t really have a way to go in and check the apartments, but …” Adam shifted.

Okay, seriously. She could use a few interrogation techniques herself.

“He’s had his own business for a while, including cleaning up at crime scenes.”

“So …?” So what? It wasn’t like he’d worked any of the crime scenes that mattered the most to Nell, right? And, as a janitor, he’d only be called in after all the techs and stuff were done.

“So he’s had a full background check, and he’s clean. No reports of anything.”

At some point she’d reach maximum frown and not be able to force her eyebrows any lower.

“The story about agents picking him up and asking him about the truth of the book? Those are real.”

Nell pointed to a dough mixer. “I am sticking your arm in there and turning it on if you don’t start talking faster.”

“Look, Nell, all of this is already done and there’s nothing we can do, so I’m trying to be careful with how I explain it.”

“Then be careful faster.”

Adam scoffed and shook his head and crossed his arms. “Two agents went to see him, and asked him to come in and give them a statement, because he’d somehow Mindhuntered his way into connecting all five cases. They said he was kind of thrown by that—not too much, but they’d poked him. And they’re the ones who told him they want to talk to the real-life Rosie, because they think she killed all of them, but they can’t find her because …”

Oh, no. “Because?” It came out as a whisper.

“Because the real-life Rosie’s boyfriend had a dad who helped them disappear.” He licked his lips. “And he’s an agent. Nell—”

She shook her head and pulled away from his hand, bursting through the door between the café and the back room because her phone was out here. Art and Brandon looked up from one of the tables, startled, and of course Since You Went Away was there between them, because there was no escaping it.

“Kent said he’s coming right over,” Brandon offered before she ducked down behind the counter to grab her purse. “Didn’t even ask who Adam was.”

Like she was cheating on Kent or something. And why did her phone always fall out of its little pocket just when she needed it? Nell dug into the depths of her purse, went to her texts, and yep, there was one from Kent: I’m on my way. She checked the time stamp, but the bus schedule wasn’t in their favor.

Adam groaned, and Nell straightened up, phone in one hand, and then followed his gaze. “Exactly how many people have read that damn book?” he grumbled.

“How many people in the world, or how many people that matter to me?” she snapped, wanting to tell Kent to forget it and grab a cab or something, but Adam already said it: whatever was done was done, and it was all unfolding in another state, anyway. If Kent checked his messages he’d see she’d read it, but she stuck the phone in the pocket of her dress and crossed her arms.

Brandon looked at Art, then back at Adam. “If that’s not a rhetorical question … both of us.”

“Wait, you read it?” Nell asked Art.

He shrugged one shoulder. “All the new hype got me going. I like thrillers. This?” He tapped the book cover with one finger. “Not a thriller. And there’s no way Rosie did it. It’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.”

“Good reference,” Brandon murmured.

“You can say the compliments out loud,” Art countered.

Adam held up a hand. “The murder of who?”

“Classic Agatha Christie,” the head librarian explained. “It’s a Poirot novel, but it’s not narrated by Hastings. His Watson,” he added, either because he thought Adam needed the explanation or because he was simply used to clarifying. “The narrator’s a doctor, and it turns out he’s the one who committed the murder. He just tricks the reader by neglecting to mention it, and then he follows Poirot through the case and pretends to help him, but it doesn’t end well for him. Poirot figures it out, anyway.”

The agent shook his head a little. “You think the Cal character’s a serial killer?”

“Hell, if we’re saying this whole thing is based on real life, I’m thinking C. J. O’Connell’s the serial killer,” Art almost laughed. “It can’t be Rosie.”

“You’re blinded by his clear adoration of her,” Brandon protested.

“Wait, so you think Rosie is a serial killer?” Nell wanted to know.

Brandon shook his head. “I don’t think there’s a serial killer. I looked into those cases. The bus driver was killed by her boyfriend, the neighbor guy got whacked by a loan shark, the one friend was in a bad part of town, the next one was drunk driving, and the last one was murdered. That’s one murder.”

“Whacking’s a murder,” Art argued.

“Different purpose.”

Art shrugged. “The FBI thinks it’s a serial killer. Don’t you,” he added pointedly to Adam.

“Oh, come on,” Brandon laughed. “Next you’ll tell me he’s here because Nell’s the real Rosie, so he’s going to arrest her.”

Nell froze, but Art was already looking at her, ignoring Brandon’s laughter. If she tried to un-freeze, he’d see that, too, and note it, and know …

“Rosie’s a college senior,” her boss said conversationally. “In the book.”

Nell swallowed.

“So she’s probably about twenty-two. Right?”

She could feel Adam practically vibrating just behind her.

“But maybe she looks younger?”

“Art?” Brandon asked, like someone else should’ve already stepped in.

Still ignoring him, Art held Nell’s eyes. “Rosie doesn’t have a boyfriend in the book. But if she did, Nell … how much older would he be? Not ten years.”

“Art, I think you’re getting fact and fiction confused here.”

Nell looked away, toward the window where she’d see Kent coming, but it wasn’t time yet. The stupid buses might run on schedule, but the stupid schedule wasn’t all that frequent.

The silence stretched until Brandon broke it. “For fuck’s sake. You’re not telling me my sarcastic ass is actually right about something?”

For once, Nell thought, but didn’t say. Maybe she didn’t have to say it.

“Fuck, Nell …” Brandon shook his head and slouched, ready to laugh it off, then caught sight of the book again and stilled. “Fuck, Nell.” It was the same words, but the tone meant he’d truly stopped laughing.

Art looked at him, then back up at Nell. “Someone from your past was reaching out again. That’s what you said.”

She nodded, because yes, she’d said that much.

“And that would answer your question, wouldn’t it?” he asked Brandon. “What’s going on with the two of them. Why they’re not telling.”

“Okay, it would, but …” Brandon took a breath and turned to look at Adam. “You’re not here because you think Nell’s a murderer. You’re here … what, because you think Art’s right? The author somehow …?”

“Nell, we really should talk in private,” Adam nearly muttered.

“All the paperwork I’ve ever seen tells me she’s Penelope Harris, age twenty-two,” Art pointed out mildly, like it wasn’t actually an argument. “Social security, driver’s license … if I started claiming it wasn’t her real name, that would be slander, wouldn’t it?”

God, he was talking like Kent’s dad had after Heidi’s murder. Soon he’d point out that he wasn’t asking for any favors.

“Brandon?” he prompted.

The librarian shook his head. “I don’t deal with paperwork. Klara did all that.”

“Was there a boyfriend mentioned in the articles you read?”

“Uh.” He blinked and shook his head like it was an Etch-a-Sketch. “If the surviving girl had a boyfriend?”

“Lida-Rose Dawson, yeah.”

“No. There wasn’t any mention of that. The roommate, though—Hailey’s real name?”

“Heidi?” Nell answered automatically, but her frown was back on again. Heidi didn’t have a boyfriend. There were times Nell thought her roommate would’ve had a girlfriend if she’d had anyone, but no one had ever come forward to say they thought Heidi had a boyfriend.

Art shrugged, still looking at Brandon. “I headcanon it, though. I think Rosie had a boyfriend.”

The door chimed, making Nell jump, but it was Kent. Before he could open his mouth, Art turned to him. “Kent. We’re discussing whether Rosie”—he tapped the book again—“could’ve had a boyfriend. Making fanfiction, you know. I say she does, but I’m having trouble figuring out the details.”

“Uh.” Kent stopped, one hand on the strap of his backpack, and looked first to Nell, then Adam. “You’re writing fanfiction for a book that’s not even out yet?”

“A lonely man fills his hours as he can.”

Kent looked at Nell again, then shrugged. “I think,” he said slowly, taking off the backpack as he approached their table, “he’d be a year ahead of her, so he’s not in the book because he graduated and he’s off at his job. Plus Cal wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.”

“A year, huh?” Art mused. “Does he look a lot older than she does?”

Nell laughed. “Only after he grew the beard.”

Art turned to Adam. “Did that give you enough time to get your thoughts in order?”

Aw, shit. This part. Nell came out from behind the counter and went to Kent, who hadn’t sat down. “He said two agents picked up O’Connell, whatever his real name is, and questioned him, and gave him …” God, how was she supposed to word it?” “The boyfriend’s dad’s name.”

Kent’s head snapped up as his gaze homed in on Adam. “What?”

“I can explain.”

He leveled a pointed finger at the agent. “Then get started.”

This is the end of Part Three.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Pending – Chapter Twenty-Four

This would never be a movie. There was absolutely nothing Nell could do, aside from go back over every decision she’d ever made in her life and second-guess them. Some of them were way past second-guessing. What if she hadn’t run out on Heidi as soon as Kent got there? What if Kent had come in, and they’d talked, and waited for Heidi’s friends to show up? According to the friends, none of them was going to show up, so maybe Heidi would’ve told them to go on to dinner, anyway, once they’d been there long enough, but …

But. That was the problem. If she’d stayed instead of running out to Kent like some lovesick teenager, would she have seen who actually came to pick Heidi up?

She had to have let him in, because the outer door was locked. There wasn’t a camera watching it because hey, they all had keys, and there was no way to unlock it permanently. Chock it, sure, but they weren’t supposed to do that. If you saw the outer door held open, you shut it, and you didn’t open it for someone you didn’t recognize. And Heidi … by the book, studious, and no-fun Heidi …

It was weird that Heidi had two names, too. Nell thought of Kent as Kent even when she thought about back then, when she’d called him something else, but now Heidi was also Hailey, and the world knew that part.

People were frothing at the mouth and champing at the bit to get their hands on Since You Went Away, and maybe the brains at Penguin really should’ve thought this through, because huge chunks of text purporting to be from the book were circulating online, getting taken down, and showing up again. More debates popped up about how much people could actually post, and if couching it as part of a review meant they could legally add more, and if anyone happened to have gotten enough screenshots to put the entire book together.

The frenzy was its own news story, which at least pushed the Rosie is both real and a serial killer story down the list, but man. Her stomach twisted, and she couldn’t eat. She wasn’t even sure she was keeping up a good face at work, since at least customers only needed her for brief moments at a time, and even if they had cash, the register computed the change for her.

Nell suspected she was cutting people out, but what else was she supposed to do? Most of her friends were actually Kent’s friends who had to hang out with her because she and Kent were a package deal. Art knew something was up, but he’d already prodded and pried more than he ever had before, and it seemed like he’d reached his limit, too. Plus the release was now less than a week away, which made her wonder why all big books came out on Tuesdays, and how many people had already called into work on Wednesday, and how were you supposed to lean on someone through all of this when you were currently lying to almost everyone in your life?

Normally it didn’t matter, or at least lately it didn’t matter. At the beginning she’d been so focused on not messing up the details that she hadn’t had the time and space to concentrate on those details all being lies. They’d been practicing their new names for months at that point, and they only got the marriage license after those new names came through, so it was okay if she slipped up and called Kent her boyfriend and had to correct it to husband, as long as she called him Kent. Most of the time she got around that, anyway, and used nicknames because she was so afraid of messing up.

Once they were settled in and accepted as that runaway married couple, and she’s so young, the dear, the lies were all in place and it would’ve felt like lying to try to undo them. As far as everyone else was concerned, she was twenty-two years old and would turn twenty-three in August. She’d graduated high school and run off with her boyfriend to get married, and hadn’t worked for anyone until she worked for Art.

It was originally just going to be an interim job while she looked for something else that she liked better, but that still wouldn’t point too many fingers at the person she used to be. Kent had gone through a couple different retail jobs before becoming a library page, which was only because it was too much to get him real credits in his new name, and he was on scholarship through the library to complete his college degree, one class at a time. The gen eds were repeats, but otherwise he was on a very different track. One that meant he got the math out of the way and celebrated when he never had to take another math class again.

It was comfortable, and she liked it here in her little bubble where Kent was her closest connection, but now she had to wonder how Art would look at her if he learned the truth. Oh, Nell? Yeah, she used to work here. Showed up lying about her age and her name, but it was legit enough for her to cash all those paychecks. Might’ve been a murderer. All her friends died in college, and maybe she killed them, so I guess I’m lucky to still be here. Is dairy milk okay?

Even people whose mothers fled their abusive fathers and fought for the best life they could find wouldn’t understand the choices she and Kent made almost in an instant, because they had to choose now or lose the opportunity forever. She hadn’t actually been eighteen, but she’d felt a lot younger.

Nell looked up when the bells jingled and tried not to wince as Brandon walked in, heading straight to the counter and placing both hands on it, eyes locked on hers. “There’s something going on with the two of you,” he said in a low voice, “and Kent won’t tell me, so I’m grasping at straws and probably breaking a lot of laws of friendship to ask you.”

Uh.

“Seriously, Nell.” He shifted his weight, but his eyes remained steady. “Whatever it is, we’re here for you. You know that, right? I’m not going to pull out the ‘found family’ trope or something, but … okay, maybe I am, because I don’t really have anyone else, either. So … what’s up?”

There was a noise behind her, and she looked back to see Art come out of his office and lean against the door frame, arms folded and silent.

“Nell.”

“I can’t tell you.”

That made him scoff and look away, and Brandon crossed his arms and made Nell frown, because those were tears in his eyes. “That’s BS,” he spat at a spot to her right. “You care about people, you love them, and you don’t just let them go through something alone. Look, Nell … if we’re friends … if we’re really friends …”

God, did she even know what friends were? And it wasn’t really her own safety at risk, was it? It was Kent, who’d left his entire life and his family and focused solely on her.

The bell jingled again, and the silence had probably gone on too long, anyway, but Nell looked past Brandon and blinked because it was Adam. Adam, in his suit and looking jumpy, and the air in the room crackled as all three men paused and evaluated each other.

Nell took a breath and straightened up. “You”—pointing at Brandon—“grab a coffee and wait for me. You”—to Adam—“back room, now.”

“Who is this stranger you’re dragging into the back room?” Art asked mildly, shifting away from the door frame and gamely taking up the spot by the till.

Good question. She turned back to Brandon. “Text Kent that Adam’s here, okay?” Shit, she’d almost flubbed his name. Kent, Kent, Kent. He’d been Kent for years. She’d known him as Kent longer than—

Shaking her head, Nell grabbed Adam’s suited arm and pulled him back into Colton’s space, the stainless steel and the dough torture devices, but at least there was a door to close between them and the others. “What?” she demanded.

“Look, it’s not …” Adam took a slow breath, but it was hard to tell if he was thrown more by what he had to say or the way Brandon had glared daggers at him. “It’s not bad.”

“So it’s not good, either.”

“Nell …”

She gestured at him. “You drove all the way out here in your fed suit and showed up where I work. Right after Brendan showed up, because he knows something’s up with us and he’s upset that we won’t even tell him what it is. So. Spill.”

Chapter Twenty-Five