Chapter 21 #2
He thought about his own parents. His cousins.
The sprawling network of Bollingers who’d spent thirty years making room for his quirks, translating his bluntness, pulling him back into the world when he drifted too far into his own head.
He’d never had to wonder if he was loved.
Never had to keep letters in a box to remind himself that he’d been real to someone.
Morgan had grown up reaching for that certainty and finding empty air.
The ache behind his ribs sharpened into something fierce. He wanted to cross the room and hold her. Wanted to tell her that she’d never have to keep proof again, that he would spend the rest of his life making sure she knew she was wanted. As a friend, as a lover, as maybe more.
But this moment wasn’t about him. This moment was hers—hers and Ms. Delacroix’s—and his purpose was to stand guard and let her have it.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer. He tracked the time in his head—seven minutes since they’d entered, twelve since they’d left the vehicle—but he didn’t say anything. Some things mattered more than operational efficiency.
He never thought he’d hear those words in his own head.
Finally, Morgan moved. She set the box down on the bed, still open, and reached for a few other things.
A photograph in a simple frame—Lincoln caught a glimpse of an older woman with silver hair and kind eyes before Morgan tucked it into the box.
A worn paperback, spine cracked, pages soft with handling.
Small items that meant something only to her.
“Okay.” Her voice came out rough. “I’m ready.”
They left the way they’d come. Window first, then around the building, staying low, keeping to cover. Lincoln’s attention had shifted fully into threat assessment mode now—scanning the tree line, the road in both directions, any movement that might indicate they’d been spotted.
Nothing. The afternoon stretched quiet around them, insects humming, wind moving through the grass. Normal sounds. Innocent sounds. The kinds of sounds that could mask an ambush if you weren’t careful.
They made it back to the vehicle without incident, but he didn’t relax. Relaxation was a luxury they couldn’t afford.
Morgan settled into the passenger seat, the box of letters clutched in her lap, her fingers curled around the cardboard edges like she’d never let go. Lincoln started the engine.
“Can we drive past the library?”
He looked at her. She wasn’t looking back—her eyes were fixed straight ahead, on something he couldn’t see.
“Just to see it,” she continued. “I won’t ask to stop. I’m sure I’ve been fired by now anyway. I just want to look at it one more time.”
Lincoln’s hand hovered over the gear shift.
Driving by the library meant more exposure.
More risk. More time spent in territory where Randall’s people might be watching.
Every minute they stayed in Whitefish was another minute someone could spot them, recognize them, make a call that would bring everything crashing down.
They had what they came for. The smart move was to go. Now. Before their luck ran out.
But he looked at her face. At the grief still etched into every line. At the way she held that box like it was the only solid thing in a world that kept shifting under her feet.
He thought about all those foster homes. All those times she’d been transferred because she was too much, too strange, too overwhelming. All those years of learning that wanting things led to disappointment.
She was asking for five more minutes. Five minutes to say goodbye to a life she’d never get back. He knew that was true. Even if they were able to clear her name and put Randall and his associates behind bars, her life would never go back to what it had been before.
He couldn’t say no.
“Okay, but we don’t stop. We don’t slow down more than necessary.”
“I understand.”
He pulled out of the gravel pull-off and turned toward downtown.
It was a mistake. He knew it was a mistake even as he made it. But some mistakes you made, regardless, because the person beside you needed something more than you needed to be right.
The library appeared on their left after a few minutes.
Small brick building, two stories, the kind of architecture that had been built to last in a time when people still believed institutions were permanent.
Windows lined the front, letting in light that would fall across reading tables and quiet corners. A bike rack stood near the entrance.
Morgan stared at the building as they passed. Lincoln watched her reflection in the window—the longing in her expression, the particular kind of grief that came from seeing something you could never have again.
He should have been watching the mirrors.
By the time he looked, the sedan was already there. Dark color, nondescript, two occupants visible through the windshield. It had pulled out from somewhere behind them—a side street, a parking lot, one of a dozen places where someone could have been waiting.
Lincoln’s pulse spiked. He kept his speed steady, fighting the urge to accelerate. Took a turn. Left onto a residential street, no signal, the kind of move that looked random if you weren’t paying attention.
The sedan followed.
His hands found a better grip on the wheel. He took another turn. Right this time, onto a street that led away from downtown.
Still there. Two cars back. Maintaining distance but not losing them.
The library. The extra five minutes. He’d known it was a mistake, and he’d made it anyway, and now they were being followed because he’d chosen sentiment over strategy.
“We have company.”
Morgan’s breath caught. “Randall’s people?”
“Unknown. Could also be law enforcement. But we’re not staying to find out.”
Lincoln pressed the accelerator. The engine responded, pushing them both back against their seats.
Not panicking—panicking got people killed.
Calculating. He’d mapped escape routes before they’d left Wyoming, satellite imagery and street-level data merged into contingency plans for exactly this scenario.
“Left on Elm,” Morgan said. Her voice was steady. “There’s an alley behind the hardware store that cuts through to Second.”
He took the turn. He’d studied the streets, but she knew them—not from satellite imagery but from years of living here, driving to work, running errands on her lunch break. Local knowledge he couldn’t have downloaded.
The alley appeared exactly where she’d said. Narrow, unpaved, barely wide enough for the SUV. He took it anyway, gravel spraying beneath their wheels.
“You sure about this?”
She nodded, looking behind them over her shoulder. “Everyone thinks it dead-ends. But there’s a gap in the fence at the back—teenagers use it.”
Lincoln spotted the gap. Threaded the SUV through with inches to spare on either side. They emerged onto a residential street he didn’t recognize.
“Right, then left at the stop sign. It connects to the old mill road.”
He followed her directions. In his mirror, the sedan appeared at the mouth of the alley—too late, facing the wrong way, the driver’s confusion visible even at this distance.
“The mill road’s not on most maps,” Morgan continued. “It’s technically private property, but no one’s maintained the gate in years.”
The road was rough, climbing toward the foothills through terrain the sedan’s low clearance couldn’t handle. Lincoln pushed the SUV harder, feeling the wheels grip and release on loose gravel.
By the time they hit the county road heading out of town, there was nothing behind them but dust and empty pavement.
Lincoln kept driving. Didn’t slow down. Didn’t believe they were clear until Whitefish was miles behind them, until the landscape had shifted from town to wilderness, until the only vehicles visible were occasional trucks heading the opposite direction.
Only then did he let himself breathe.
Morgan was gripping the box of letters with both hands, her knuckles bloodless against the cardboard. Her face had gone pale, but her voice came out steady when she spoke.
“Are we clear?”
“For now.” Lincoln checked the mirrors again. Nothing. “But they saw us.”
“Your license plate—”
“It’s registered through a shell company. Traces to a holding corporation in Delaware that traces to nothing useful.” He’d set that up years ago. Standard precaution for anyone who valued privacy. “They can’t find me from the plate.”
Morgan exhaled. Some of the tension left her shoulders. “So they can’t find you.”
“Not from the plate.” Lincoln paused, weighing how much to tell her. All of it, he decided. She deserved all of it. “But they might have gotten a photo. Through the windshield. When they were behind us.”
“You mean facial recognition?”
“If they have access and got the shot. It’s not instant—not for a private operation without direct feeds to government databases. But it’s possible. Depending on their resources, their connections, how badly they want to find us.”
He didn’t know for certain. Couldn’t know. But Lincoln thought in probabilities, not certainties.
“Could it have been federal?” Morgan asked. “I’m on their list too.”
“Possible. If it was FBI or Marshals, I can probably explain it away. I have contacts. History. I could claim I was following a lead, running my own investigation.” He paused. “It would burn some trust, but it wouldn’t destroy me.”
“And if it was Randall’s people?”
“Then they’re already running my face through every database they can access.” The probability that Randall had access to facial recognition technology—or knew someone who did—was higher than he wanted to admit.
“How long?” Morgan asked. “Before they could identify you?”
“Days. Maybe a week or two if we’re lucky. Maybe less if they have better resources than I’m estimating.”
The implications settled over them. Lincoln watched Morgan process it—the way her grip tightened on the box, the way her breathing went shallow, the way she stared out the windshield at the road unwinding ahead of them.
“So we have a window,” she said finally. “But it’s closing.”
Lincoln nodded. The compound was still safe—for now. His security systems, his careful anonymity, the layers of misdirection he’d built over years of paranoid preparation. All of it would hold.
For a while. Nothing could hold forever, not even something he created.
The clock had started. Every day that passed was a day closer to someone connecting his face to his name, his name to his address, his address to the woman he was hiding.
The road stretched empty ahead of them. They had to move faster now. Had to find the pattern in Morgan’s data before Randall found them.
The letters sat in her lap, proof of love preserved on paper. But paper couldn’t protect them from what was coming.