Tears blurred everything. “Not the whole time. I suspected. Then I knew. But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t let him near you. I changed our names. I moved twice. Everything I built was built around keeping you safe.”
The front door handle rattled.
My father looked up, suddenly sharp again. “I came here tonight because Rachel escaped two days ago,” he said. “She made it to a shelter in Ohio. They called me after she gave my name. I knew the police would come. I knew he’d panic.”
“He?” I asked.
He nodded toward the door. “Daniel Harper kept records. Videos. Insurance payouts. Blackmail. Money. He did the dirtiest work, but he never trusted me. If Rachel resurfaced, he’d come for both of us.”
As if the words had summoned him, a gunshot ripped through the front window.
Glass exploded inward.
My mother screamed.
Rachel dropped to the floor.
I dragged Noah down just as another bullet tore into the wall above us.
“Back hallway!” my father shouted.
We ran.
The alarm shrieked alive, red lights flashing through the dark like a warning from somewhere hellish. My father shoved open the mudroom door to the garage—
Then stopped.
Daniel Harper was already inside.
Older now. Heavier. One side of his face twisted by an old burn scar. But unmistakable.
He held a gun in one hand and a ring of keys in the other, smiling as though he’d arrived at a private joke only he understood.
“Tom,” he said. “You always did wait too long.”
Rachel shrank behind me.
Noah pressed close to my shoulder, breathing hard.
Daniel’s eyes moved lazily over all of us—then landed on Noah.
For the first time, his smile faltered.
“Well,” he murmured. “That’s unfortunate.”
My father stepped in front of us.
“I gave you money,” he said. “You should have stayed gone.”
Daniel laughed, low and ugly. “You gave me enough to disappear. Not enough to forgive.”
He raised the gun.
After that, everything happened all at once.
My father lunged.
The shot detonated inside the garage like a bomb.
Daniel staggered into the workbench, and the gun skidded across the concrete.
Before I could move, Noah kicked it hard under the car.
Rachel grabbed a metal jack handle and swung with the force of fifteen stolen years.
The crack against Daniel’s skull was sickening.
He dropped to one knee. Tried to rise.
