Chapter 10
Price drove me from Cal’s workshop to the safer place where Tasha had taken Ruby. I watched the rain slip down the window, blurring the unlit garages behind us until they disappeared. Eric’s car had been warm, his trail fresh, and every mile seemed to carry us closer to the next thing he’d planned.
Tasha’s refuge was a modest duplex behind a row of maples, the kind of place you could pass without noticing. Price checked the street before he let me out. Through the front window, I saw Ruby curled on the couch with her blue sketchbook open across her knees.
For one breath, I forgot the workshop. I forgot the recordings, the policy, the house we couldn’t enter.
Then Ruby spotted me and ran to the door.
I caught her against me. Her arms locked around my waist, and I buried my face in her damp hair.
“You came back,” she whispered.
“I’m right here.”
Tasha stood behind her, pale with worry but steady on her feet. “She’s been drawing.”
Ruby pulled away just enough to show me the page. She’d drawn a house with a yellow window and a chimney sending up a fat gray curl. In the yard, three stick figures stood close together.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s a good house.”
“It’s not ours,” she said.
“No,” I answered. “It’s just a drawing.”
The truth seemed to settle her more than any promise could have. She rested against my side as Price spoke quietly into his radio near the front window. I tried to believe that for a few minutes, we could simply stand together.
A hard knock sounded at the back of the house.
Ruby’s fingers clenched around my coat.
Tasha looked toward the kitchen. “No one’s supposed to be back there.”
Price turned from the window. His face changed before he reached for his radio.
“Stay away from the door,” he said.
The next knock came harder. A voice followed, muffled by the door and the rain.
“Open up. I know you’re in there.”
Tasha’s eyes fixed on mine. I didn’t recognize the voice, but I knew the urgency beneath it.
Price moved toward the back hallway. “I’m going around.”
Ruby had gone stiff beside me. I lowered myself until we were eye to eye.
“Look at me,” I whispered. “You’re with Tasha. We’re going out the side gate, together.”
“Is it Dad?”
“I don’t know.” I kept my voice gentle, even as my heart began to hammer. “But we’re leaving.”
Tasha snatched Ruby’s sketchbook from the couch. I took Ruby’s hand, and we moved through the kitchen. Another blow rattled the back door.
“Bring the phone!” the man shouted. “I’m not leaving without it.”
I looked at Tasha. She didn’t have the black phone. Price had kept it, sealed in a clear evidence pouch. But the man outside didn’t know that—or didn’t care. He wanted the phone, and he expected us to hand it over.
At the side door, Ruby froze.
“Mom, I’m scared.”
“I know.” I squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to stop being scared. You just have to come with me.”
We slipped into the narrow passage beside the duplex. Rain stippled the gravel and soaked through my sleeves. Tasha opened the side gate, and Ruby ducked through first, clutching her sketchbook to her chest.
A dark vehicle sat beyond the fence, engine idling.
I pulled Ruby back behind me. For one sick moment, I thought we’d walked into another trap. Then Price appeared at the far end of the passage, one hand raised to stop us.
“Keep moving,” he said. “The unit’s coming around front.”
A shout came from behind the house. Then the slam of a door and the sudden growl of an engine.
Price broke into a run.
I kept Ruby moving through the gate and toward the marked cruiser. Tasha stayed close behind us. The dark vehicle shot away from the curb, its tires hissing over wet pavement. Price and an officer ran after it, but it was already turning the corner.
I glanced back at the duplex. No broken glass. No one on the porch. The house looked as ordinary as it had a few minutes earlier, and that felt almost cruel.
“Mom,” Ruby said, breathing fast. “Who was that?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked up at me, searching my face for the answer I couldn’t give her. I brushed rain from her cheek with my thumb.
“You did exactly what you needed to do.”
Price came back, rain shining on his jacket. “The driver’s gone. We’ll get officers to check the area.”
“Did you see him?” I asked.
“Not clearly.” He glanced toward the street. “But he knew to come here.”
Tasha’s hand went to her mouth. “How?”
Nobody answered. Then I saw the family car parked across the street, half-hidden beneath a maple tree. I’d left it here when we came to Tasha’s place earlier, and now a small black object clung beneath the rear bumper.
Price crouched beside it without touching it.
“Don’t get near it,” he said.
My stomach turned cold. “A tracker?”
“Looks like one.”
The car had been sitting here while Ruby and Tasha stayed inside. Someone had found us anyway. The refuge wasn’t a refuge now; it was only another place Eric knew how to reach.
Price’s radio crackled. He listened, jaw tightening, then looked at me.
“We’re moving you. Different cars, different route.”
Ruby held my hand so tightly her knuckles blanched. I wanted to tell her the danger was over. Instead, I knelt and pressed her sketchbook safely between us.
“Keep your drawing,” I said. “We’ll take it with us.”
She nodded, still afraid, but she moved when I moved.
We had just reached the cruiser when my phone vibrated. The screen showed Vanessa’s name.
Price saw it. “Don’t answer.”
The message preview appeared beneath her name.
Eric says he’s with me. He says if you want me safe, bring the phone to our house.
My breath caught. I read it again, but the words stayed the same.
A second message arrived.
May you like
Come alone.
The house we’d been warned away from was no longer just the scene of Eric’s plan. Now he was using it to pull me back into his reach—and Vanessa was somewhere with him.
