I answered it, groggy. A collect call from the Highwater County Correctional Facility.
I was jolted awake, heart threatening to leap from my chest. I accepted the charges, just in a daze of confusion.
“Robin.”
I hadn’t heard that name in so long it felt like a lie. My eyes filled and my throat closed.
“You call yourself something different now. That’s probably a good thing. As long as you don’t forget who you are.”
“Dad.” The word was thick in my mouth, tasting of sorrow and betrayal. Don’t love him, Jay warned. He doesn’t deserve it. But I did. Even after everything. Tears fell like a river. I sank to the floor, legs weak. I was back there with him in the garden, walking through the woods.
“Are you safe? Are you well?”
“Yes,” I managed to say.
“There are no words for what I’ve done. There’s no road back. But I wanted you to know that I found a way forward. That I think of you all every day. And that regret is my constant companion.”
I couldn’t find my voice. But a sob escaped my throat.
“Be strong,” he told me. “And that place is always there for you. When the world of men fails you, it will open its arms.”
Anger rose up. I wish my aim had been better, that I hadn’t lost my nerve—that my arrow had found his heart.
“You’re the one who failed me, Dad,” I said. “Not the world.”
“I know it.” His voice was just a whisper. “Forgive me.”
We stayed on the phone in silence, not sure how long, hatred and love and longing and grief a desperate mingle. Dr. Cooper always said that forgiveness was for me and not for him. That it was a way to release the pain in my own heart, not a condoning or an acceptance of his wrongs. But I couldn’t find my way there then, though I understand those words better now. I’m still not there.
Then, “Goodbye, little bird.”
He hung up, and I sat in the same spot until Jax got home from the clubs. We stayed up almost until the sun rose, talking about the things I’d never shared with anyone else—until I met you.
This road has no end. The urge to call Jax is strong. She’ll know what to do. But I just keep driving, following your trail.
forty-two
The blue dot pulsed. Cooper, who was driving fast and sure, eyes ahead, hands at two and twelve, had hardly said a word the whole ride. Bailey appreciated a man who didn’t feel the need to make small talk, especially as Bailey fought off waves of nausea, pain, held on tenuously to his consciousness. He’d told Cooper everything about the case, and Bailey could tell the other man was processing it all like a machine. But he’d said very little, except to admit that they’d made mistakes the night of the raid. That if they’d handled it differently, things might not have spun out of control.
“You carry that, you know. When your mistakes cost people their lives.”
“I know it,” said Bailey. “When you fail at this job, it hurts—and not just you. People get hurt.”
Cooper flashed him some kind of look, an acknowledgment of the truth, an acceptance.
Bailey tried Wren’s phone again. Where was she going?
He’d called multiple times. No answer, straight to voice mail. Wren Greenwood, what the hell are you doing?
The dot came to an abrupt halt, kept flashing.
“She’s stopped,” he told Cooper. The other man nodded as if this didn’t surprise him.
“There’s a gas station up ahead if I remember correctly,” Cooper said.
But the road was dark and empty—they hadn’t seen a house or a business or another car in an hour of driving. Bailey always lived in cities, where everything was a crush and you were never really alone. He craved the buzz of people and culture, food and energy, architecture. Say what you want about the modern world and all its evils. But the emptiness of the area was starting to press on him. He couldn’t imagine anything appearing out of this darkness.
But there—just up ahead on the right, a glow, a distant lit sign.
Bailey felt a rush of relief. Everyone had to stop for gas sometime. Gas stations and toll booth security cameras were the best things to ever happen to law enforcement and private detectives. Though it hadn’t helped him with Mia. Once she’d left her apartment, her image wasn’t captured anywhere within a three hundred mile radius—not a toll road, not at a pump, not at a motel. She’d made no charges on her credit card. Her phone was left behind. She’d slipped off that electronic grid that existed now to keep people findable.