Chapter Seventeen
Jo
He was gone before I stopped cleaning the kitchen. The house exhaled. I headed to the hallway and let the silence sink in.
It’s done.
Movement cured panic the way a bandage stops bleeding.
I didn’t hesitate, didn’t let my thoughts stray.
I moved through the house with a list in my head and my fingers already busy.
Everything that mattered went into boxes.
Everything that might tie me to this place if it fell into the wrong hands got packed and sealed.
After tidying the house, I headed to the barn.
There was no theatrics. No last-minute pauses.
I pulled drawers, wiped fingerprints, stacked devices like a surgeon arranging tools.
The lab looked smaller when I took it apart—rows of once-ordered machines reduced to pieces I could carry.
Hard drives. Notebooks. A motherboard wrapped in a towel like a secret.
The prototype cells slid into a foam case that swallowed them.
I moved like someone who had done this before, because I had. The motions were second nature because they were survival. Lift. Wrap. Seal. Stack. Load.
When the boxes got too heavy my lungs tightened; I’d set them down, flex my fingers, and keep going. Pain was useful. It left no room for indecision.
I drove to a neighboring town like a ghost—no detours, no lingering.
The rental place was a tired strip of sagging awnings and older vehicles.
The clerk asked for a license; I offered him a fake one and paid in cash.
He handed me keys and a clipboard. I signed a name that belonged to no one he’d ever meet again.
I rented a box truck and a dolly. The truck’s engine idled like a patient animal as I shopped the store across the parking lot. Back at the car with ratchet straps, contractor trash bags, zip ties, oversized sunglasses, a boxed hair rinse, and one black eyeliner pencil I felt ready to go.
I bought the usual packing items, but also things that changed how I looked without screaming disguise. Temporary fixes. Visual noise.
I kept moving. Loaded the truck the way I’d been trained to: methodically, logically.
Boxes in the center, heavier at the bottom, tie-downs last. The motorcycle took up the back.
I ran my thumb along the leather and felt a short, hot pulse of memory of riding off into the night alone with little more than this bike and my father’s notes.
Here we go again.
I wrestled the bike up the ramp and hooked the straps. One bit into my palm when I yanked it tight; I cursed and channeled the sting into the next motion. Strap. Lock. Test. Repeat.
The sedan was next. I’d rented the dolly not because I needed to return it to Silas, even if he was no longer there to receive it.
Back at the farm, when the loading was finished, I should have felt relief, because I was free to go.
But I couldn’t. Not yet. One last thing. My Beretta was in Silas’ safe. Part of being always on the run was learning to get around locks—those meant to keep you in and those meant to keep you out.
Silas kept paperwork and cash inside his safe.
I took only what was mine. The office was quiet and disturbingly empty.
Silas had kept these walls and this place full of laughter and people.
How sad that his passing changed all of that.
The lamp still sat where it always had, casting small islands of light across his desk.
As I closed the safe, the edge of an old photo caught my eye.
Curiosity won. I pulled it out. Two college-aged kids, nerdy and grinning—Silas and my father.
Another frame held a slightly older Silas, arm around a beautiful, very pregnant woman, both of them looking at each other with a love so fierce it stole the air from my lungs.
On the back, in a woman’s handwriting: To the best husband in the world.
Happy birthday. You’re going to be an amazing father. – Melinda.
Silas, you had a wife?
A child?
He’d never told me. Not once.
I placed that second photo gently back into the safe and closed the door with a soft click.
My gaze drifted to his empty chair, and I could almost see him still there, asking how the work was going, promising everything would be okay.
I told myself to stay focused. There were still miles to cover, a list that didn’t include falling apart in a dead man’s study.
But the lie didn’t hold.
I sat down in his chair and inhaled sharply. Another breath, then a stutter, then a ragged gasp that became a sob I could no longer swallow.
I miss you, Silas.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
In case you missed it, Nate finally came back. He was falling in love with this farm, just the way you did.
I fixed that for you.
You’re welcome.