Sighing, I grab my first book of the day; I flip open the pages and take in the aged scent of the paper. It’s almost like dusty vanilla and some spice I can never put my finger on. Deloris, the head librarian, claims it’s nothing but dust motes and mold, but it’s not. It’s a beautiful smell. It makes me think of home, which makes no sense because I never had any books growing up.
Taking one last whiff of its heady brew, I flatten down the first tattered page of Romeo & Juliet. I click on the scanner and the red beam of light hums across the page. Content in my little corner of the world, I begin to scan the pages.
Hawk
Walking toward the house, my muscles flex. My hunt for Jada ends today. It was foolish for them to run.
We’ll find them. We will always find them.
“Stop talking to me,” I whisper as my feet crunch along the gravel.
My feet make no sound as I take to her stairs. She can’t know I’m coming. I need to take her by surprise.
I turn the handle to her house. It’s unlocked.
Fool!
Pushing the door open as softly as I can, I peek in through the crack. The living room appears deserted. She’s here, though. I can smell her jasmine perfume.
A soft clink of a glass comes from my left. I smile. She’s in the kitchen. With measured steps I make my way in to seek out my pray.
She sits at a table, her back to me. Never sit with your back to an entrance. That’s survival 101. I lean casually against the wall and pick the dirt out from under my nails.
“Where is she, Kari?”
My voice startles her. She spills her tea all over herself. She looks up at me wide-eyed and pushes back from her table. Papers she’d been reading scatter around her; some float to the floor. Her face has lost all color. She’s scared of me. Good. She should be.
“And don’t lie, ‘cause I’ll know.”
She opens her mouth to say something, but she can’t seem to speak.
She knows where Jada is; look at the fear in her eyes. Seth laughs inside my head. He wants me to torture Kari in order to pull out her secrets, but I rein him in. She’ll tell us where Jada’s hiding. If she knows what’s good for her.
It’s clear from Kari’s expression she didn’t think I’d show up here. She probably thought my parents would have picked me up and kept me on house arrest or something. Fat chance. No one came to get me. My folks wrote me off a long time ago, but I was kind of hoping Ms. G would’ve showed. Then again, her letters just stopped coming one day too. They all leave you, Hawk. But not Jada. We’ll make sure she stays with us forever.
I shake my head to clear the fog Seth creates in my thinking.
“I asked you a question!” I take my anger with the voices out on Kari.
Her lips flounder, no doubt trying to spin some sort of lie. So far I’ve figured out she’s not here in Webster. According to one of Ms. G’s early letters, Jada’s house was sold off shortly after I got imprisoned and now it looks as though Tobias’s place is up on the market. They left no forwarding address, and they are nowhere to be found online. They’ve vanished, or think they have. And they’ve taken my daughter with them. That’s why I’m here. Ms. G mentioned she was chummy with Kari, or at least she was at the time of her last letter to me. They had to tell someone where they’d gone, and Kari is the logical choice.
Kari’s eyes dart around the room as though she’s looking for something to hit me with.
I’d like to see her try. Seth laughs inside my mind.
I notice her focus lands on her kitchen table for a fraction of a second before they flick back to me. She doesn’t want me to notice something... but what?
Glancing down, I see it at once. Sitting on her table is a small box full of carefully folded papers. Paper just like the type Ricardo used to write on. They’re letters.
My eyes flick back to Kari’s. Her eyes widen, giving her away.
As I reach for one of the opened letters, Kari tries to stop me, but I’m far too fast for her. Snatching it away from her grasp, I read the first few lines. It’s from Ms. G.
I wave the letter slowly back and forth in the air and smile. So they have been writing. Interesting.
Kari doesn’t say a word, and her silence is all the conformation I need. Lifting the worn envelope from the table, I know it will have just what I need. The return address. Flipping it over confirms it: Montreal, Canada. Got ya.
I give Kari a small nod of thanks and back out of her dingy kitchen. My fingers curl against the folds of the letter. We’re coming, baby.
It’s as I’m opening the door that Seth yells at me to stop. Pausing with my hand on the doorknob, I listen.
“Pick up, pick up,” Kari whispers. My hand slips off the door as I feel my mind shift.
Is she calling the cops on us?
As I creep forward, I hear Jada’s voice in the background. My heart leaps, but it’s only a recording.
“He knows where you are. Get out of there, now! Run!”
She’s giving us away! Stop her!
I’m raging, my feet flying back into her kitchen. Kari’s eyes pop up from the e-port, terrified.
“Get out of my house, Hawk! Don’t you come another step closer, do you hear me?”
Get the phone, he commands. Before she can even blink, I snatch it right out of her shaking hands.
I end the call by throwing her port across the room. It hits her refrigerator before it shatters into oblivion.
Grinding my teeth together, I push the rage down. As much as I want to hurt Kari for warning Jada of my arrival, I know I can’t. I’d end up right back in prison. You have a plan, Hawk. Don’t screw it up. Stick to the plan and we’ll get everything we’re owed.
Taking one last calming breath, I glare at Kari one final time before I push out of her kitchen, snatching her car keys that just happen to be dangling on a little hook by the door as I do.
Thanks for the ride, Kari. This will get us there so much faster.
“Me. It will get ME there so much faster,” I hiss as I rev the engine. Of course, now that I have a car, crossing the border will be harder than going in through the woods like I planned. It’ll be easy to convince someone to drive the car over the border with the stash we have. Then we can sneak in the way we planned.
“Argh! There is no we! Got it?” I shout in the car. My fingers dig into the steering wheel. “Get a grip, Hawk. I’m in control. Me. No one else.” My words bounce off the fabric of the car but seem to have little effect on the beast bubbling inside me.
Rolling my shoulders, I hit the gas. Soon, Jada. Soon, this nightmare will all be over. We’ll be together. Just as we were destined to be.
Jada
The first book of the day is scanned, and reluctantly, I slide the paperback down the disposal shoot. Such a waste.
I grab another collection of plays off the pile waiting to be scanned and crack open the cover: Jekyll & Hyde. I’ve just finished scanning the first act when my e-port goes off. I can’t help but smile. It’ll be Tobias checking to make sure I made it to work.
Putting the scanner down, I reach into my bag, pull out my e-port, and pop out the screen.
I frown when I see the message isn’t from Tobias. It’s from Kari. My heart always races when she messages me updates, even though every one has been benign so far.
I tell the message to play and her voice comes on at once.
“He knows where you are. Get out of there, now! Run!” I almost drop the e-port in panic, but Kari’s voice continues with an intense level of terror that wasn’t there a second ago. “Get out of my house, Hawk! Don’t you come another step closer, do you hear me?”
The message stops abruptly, right along with my breath. The e-port slips out of my hand, its side screen slides back inside, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
He knows. Hawk knows where we are.
I feel my body slip out of my chair and sink down to the floor as well. The tremble begins in my hands and rockets it
s way down to the tips of my toes.
Not only did he know where we were, but he went after Kari! We’d put her in danger! While I try to suppress my nausea, my fingers fumble to reach my e-port. I ask it to “return call” and hold my breath, praying for Kari to pick up, but she never does.
Covered in sweat and trembling, I fumble with my e-port, trying to regain feeling in my fingers. I have to warn Tobias. We have to get out of here. Now.
That’s when I notice the date on Kari’s message. It’s old. Two days old. I must not have checked my messages over the weekend—which means... he could already be here.
Doing the only thing I can do, I take what may have been Kari’s last advice, and I run.
Tobias
The soft sucking sound of Janelle’s thumb in her mouth fills the living room as I clean up her toys. The quality of the sound through her baby monitor is in Ultra-Def, so I can hear a pin drop even a floor away from her. It was an expensive purchase, but one we both insisted on. Okay, maybe I insisted more, but that’s beside the point.
Janelle is not a morning person, much like her mother, so she’s still sound asleep. She’ll easily stay conked out until 9:30 or later if I let her. We’re working on trying to regulate her to a normal routine, but she seems to have a mind of her own.
I smile thinking about how her little lip juts out in determination when we tell her it’s time for bed. She has us both wrapped around her pinky and she knows it.
Since I’ll have to wake her soon, I start pulling out eggs for pancakes. That girl loves her pancakes.
Bending over to grab the frying pan from the cupboard, I hear her little body starting to move around. I love watching her wake up, so I leave the pan on the stovetop and tiptoe up to her room.
As I head up the stairs, my e-port goes off. It’s Jada. Probably calling to say she made it to work safely. She knows I worry. I click on her message as my hand grabs Janelle’s door. Only two words flick across the screen, but they chill me to the core.
“HE KNOWS!”
Instantly, my pulse begins to hammer against my skin as I throw open the door, suddenly faced with an overwhelming need to see my daughter.
Janelle’s pale-blue eyes stare back at me before they crinkle into her famous smile.
“Papa!” She reaches up her arms for her morning hug. Letting out a breath of relief, I race over to pull her out of her bed and into a massive bear hug.
“Oh, pooh bear, you scared me.” I bury my head deep inside her blond curls, pulling her tight against my chest. I do my best to hide my shaking limbs from her and hold her as hard as I can.
She giggles in my arms as she blows bubbles on my cheek, her morning ritual with me.
“I want cakes!” She beams, pulling out of my embrace before I’m ready to let her go.
“I know, baby girl. I just need to call Mommy really quick.” I bring her to the bathroom where she does her morning business.
As fast as I can, I return Jada’s call. She’s already out of the office and heading home. She plays me Kari’s message and I want to rip her through the phone lines and drag her into my arms.
“I’ll get us ready. You just get home,” I tell her, pocketing the device.
Janelle comes out of the bathroom, rubbing her eyes. Her belly gives a loud grumble.
“I know you want cakes, honey, but first Papa needs to pack you up a little bag. We’re gonna go on a trip!” I say in my best excited voice, hoping she doesn’t pick up on the fear lining the edges.
I take her hand and walk her back into her bedroom. She stretches her tiny little body for a moment before she walks over to her pile of toys and yanks out her talking doll.
As the doll tells Janelle she “loves” her, I quickly open her closet and pull out her old diaper bag. I dump out the collection of cloth diapers stored inside and start shoving clothes into it.
“I wanna help!” Janelle says, clapping her hands, unaware that I’m not playing a game. Since I don’t want to worry her, I let her put in her favorite toys (her doll, which is still talking, and her stuffed pink bunny.) She runs over to her dresser and takes off a picture frame of her Grammy. She gives the picture a quick kiss before she tucks it in the bag.
Satisfied, she takes my hand and I lead her into my room where she helps me pack things for Jada and me. I’m not even registering what I’m throwing in the overnight bag. There’s no time for that. I have absolutely no idea where we’ll go. I just know we can’t stay here.
“All done?” Janelle asks me as I gather the bags from the bed. Her bright eyes look up at me expectantly.
“All done,” I whisper, looking around the bedroom that had been her home.
“Yay, cakes now!” She giggles and takes off down the stairs.
I hurry after her, setting the bags by the door. Jada just messaged me again to say she’ll be home in five minutes. It’s not soon enough, but it will have to do.
Janelle, in the meantime, has crawled up to the table and grabbed herself a fork.
“Let’s get you some breakfast before we leave, pooh bear.”
I walk over to the stove and quickly start making her pancakes for the last time in the one place we thought we were safe. Where will we go? How will we pay for it?
“Papa?” Janelle asks me as I pour some batter onto the pan.
“Yes, baby girl?” A line of sweat drips down my back.
“Are we going to see Daddy soon?
Her question shocks me so much that I drop the spatula to the ground. Her tiny eyes peer into me, waiting for my answer.
“I’m your daddy,” I whisper, turning to look her in the eye.
“No, you’re my papa.” She giggles. “I mean Daddy.” She raises her tiny finger and points to the drawing she made yesterday that hangs on the fridge. Scribbles really, but she’d been so proud of it that we had to put it up.
She slides out of the chair and points to the blobs on her drawing. “Mama,” she says, selecting a pink swirl. “Papa.” She points to a single yellow line. “Daddy.” she smiles, indicating the tall pale-blue squiggles.
Swallowing hard, I scoot down to her level and place my hand on the side of her face.
“Janelle, baby. Have you ever seen this man before?” I ask her, pointing at the blue lines.
She nods her head up and down.
My heart thunders in my chest. “Where?”
Janelle gives me a slight smile, then points to her head. “He was in here with Mama. Are we gonna see him, Papa?”
I open my mouth to speak, but the words fail me.
Not if I have anything to do with it.
Chapter Four
Jada
The Metro seems to take forever as I try to keep my pulse in check. I message Tobias every few minutes to let him know where I am. Each stop the train makes puts my mind a bit more at ease.
Tobias has already started packing. The faster we leave the better.
I’ve already began calculating where we’ll go. Obviously, it’ll have to be back into the States at least until we can get some money saved. We could push farther into Canada, but the weather in the winter might be too hard on Tobias’s lungs if he ever got sick again.
There’s about a thousand dollars in our account right now. Money that was going to go to this month’s rent. I hate having to run out without paying the bill, but I have little choice now. I’ll find a way to pay what’s owed once we’re safe again.
A million scenarios play out in my mind as the train brings me closer to Tobias. Do we go back to New Hampshire to check on Kari first? Or is that just what Hawk wants us to do? Maybe he’s not here in Canada at all. Maybe the whole thing was a setup so we’d go straight to Kari and him.
We couldn’t risk it. I hate not knowing if Kari is safe or not, but I’ve already called the police and left an anonymous tip to check on a burglary at her house. I didn’t dare leave my name; I’m too riddled with paranoia to even trust the police. All I can think about right now is running.
The airbrakes squeal. My stop is up next. I just need to walk two blocks. Then I can sink into Tobias’s arms and breathe deeply again. As long as I’m with him, I can handle anything.
People bump against me as I fight against the grain to make it up the stairs. I’m elbowed no less than three times before I can escape into the tunnel that leads upstairs.
With every step I take closer to the apartment, I begin to feel a bit safer. I’m on edge though, so I look up at every face I pass just long enough to make sure they aren’t Hawk. They’re all smiling or chatting on their e-ports—all oblivious to the fact that I’m having a nervous breakdown inside my own skin.
As I turn the corner, I see our apartment building. The worn red brick calls me home like a beacon. From here I can make out our outdoor patio. Our two bright-red plastic chairs sit side by side with a tiny pink one wedged in the center. Janelle’s pushbike is outside, which tells me she’s probably still asleep. She loves to ride that thing. The sun hasn’t made it over the building yet, so it covers the entrance in a gloomy sort of shadow. The trees that mirror the brick pillars make it even darker. Despite the eeriness of the entrance, I smile. In a matter of minutes, my world can stop spinning.
I reach my hand out and place my thumb on the scan pad. The door unlocks. As I reach for the handle, an arm slinks around my waist and pulls me backward—hard.
My mouth opens to scream, but it’s instantly covered up with a massive hand.
“Shhh! Don’t scream, baby. It’s only me,” Hawk whispers hot against my ear.
I’m instantly paralyzed with fear. My eyes dance around hoping someone will see us and help, but he’s managed to pull me behind the tall shrubs so we’re completely hidden from the street.
As his fingers press into my skin, my mind shouts at me to stomp on his foot and run like hell, or fight to get out of his hold at the very least. But I don’t do any of that. Instead, I just stand here, too scared to even breathe. My worse nightmare is coming true and I have no idea how to stop it.
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