The woman immediately dumped the contents onto the dinette table. Before Lily looked away, she saw a driver’s license, a debit card, and a cheap black cellphone. A few moments later, the woman whispered, “It’s all here, I think.”
“Okay. Let’s go around eleven. There’s a bus that leaves at eleven forty-five. Are you ready?”
Amber looked around in resignation, her hand smoothing over pale strands of hair that had snuck out in all directions from a ponytail. “It’s not like I have much to pack.”
Lily reached out to pat her shoulder. “You look like you got some sleep, anyway.”
“Not much else to do. It’s been good for me. Good for us.” She touched her belly again, her eyes softening with grief.
“Do you need any food? For now or to take with?” When Amber shook her head, Lily gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Then I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She slipped out the door and raced back toward the office, lighter now that she didn’t have the documents on her. This would be over tonight.
After cutting down a narrow lane to dash toward the nearest building, she stepped clear of the last RVs and glanced toward the sound of an engine. And just like that, disaster struck.
She nearly collided with another body before it jumped away with a yelp. Lily drew in a breath so sharp it hurt; then her heart clenched with pain when she realized it wasn’t a stranger she’d almost run into. It was her son.
“Everett!” she gasped, as if he didn’t know his own name.
Had he seen anything? Had he followed? His face looked pale and stricken, lips parted and eyes wide with shock.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I was just . . .” Her mind blanked. This was her place of work. She did . . . things around here every day. Vital things. But now she couldn’t think of one task to throw out for cover? “I was just . . . Are you ready for dinner?”
“Huh?” he grunted.
“We’ll keep it simple with grilled cheese tonight,” she managed to say in an almost-normal voice. “And tater tots. We haven’t had tots in a long time.” She forced a smile and kept talking. “We can count the ketchup as a vegetable just this once, all right? I won’t make you eat a salad.”
“Yeah.” He laughed, though it cracked with nervousness. Why? Because he’d seen something he shouldn’t have?
“Okay,” she said, mind spinning between addressing the issue or ignoring it. She finally grasped on to the excuse of their fight. That was probably why he was acting strange.
“Okay,” he repeated, before hurrying past her to grab his bike.
Even if he’d seen her go into the RV, that couldn’t mean anything to him. The woman would be gone tonight. He wouldn’t have time to snoop around. Unless he did it right now. “I need you to unload the dishwasher before I start dinner,” she blurted over her shoulder as she walked away. “Can you do it now?”
“Yes. Sure. I’m coming.” She heard the scuff of his shoes and then the crunch of tires. He would follow her home, and by tomorrow, if he had any time to poke around, there would be nothing left for him to see.
But she couldn’t forget that moment of stark alarm on his face.
She’d emphasized to him over and over again how important it was to follow the rules in life, to stay out of trouble, to be honest. She could never tell him the truth she hid from everyone: that she worried about Everett’s morals no matter how nice a boy he was. That she feared he’d inherited more from his dad than dark hair and a tendency to freckle.
Something had been deeply wrong with his father, because Jones had lived a friendly, normal, open life while he’d been embezzling money, hiding it away, and planning his escape. Some dark flaw had allowed him to do that, and on her loneliest nights, Lily wondered if Jones had been born that way . . . and what that could mean for Everett.
She could never tell him that. She could barely admit it to herself.
She needed to set a better example for her son, and she couldn’t put her livelihood in danger, and now this damn cop was sniffing around? No. She’d been blessedly cop-free for a few years now, since they’d finally given up their fantasy that she was hiding Jones under their noses.
No, this had suddenly gotten too dangerous. She’d call Zoey and put a stop to this tomorrow. No more risks. They just weren’t worth it.
CHAPTER 4
“Everett,” she whispered softly, barely a breath of sound in the dark. Her son didn’t stir, so Lily kissed his messy brown curls and backed slowly out of his room.