Chapter Five #3
“I know you’re Jade Kemp. I know you left my keys where I’d find them. I know you stood between me and Crystal with the cuffs on the table. I know you make jokes when you’re scared, and I know you hate needing help.”
I couldn’t get a clean breath.
He glanced at my mouth, then away. He didn’t hide it. He chose not to stay there.
“And I know you didn’t strand me,” he said.
A laugh broke out of me, rough and unwilling. “You’re never letting that truck go.”
“Not for a while.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t throw the keys into the trees.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“You sound very sure.”
“You wanted me to find it.” His voice dropped. “You didn’t want me stranded.”
I turned away first.
The woods were safer. Empty road. Pine trunks. Thin dust. No dark eyes reading the truth off my face.
“I didn’t have time to be that petty,” I said.
“Sure.”
“I hate you a little.”
“I earned some of it.”
The word some fit too well.
Dex moved beside me at the rail, leaving a careful foot of space between us. His forearm rested on the weathered wood. The crucifix slipped forward when he leaned, worn silver catching the sun.
My gaze dropped to it before I could stop myself.
His hand closed around it.
Not hard. Enough to tell me he’d noticed.
“Annette said not to turn this into pride,” I said.
“She says useful things at bad volume.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“Turning it into pride.”
Dex faced the road. “No. I’m getting accurate.”
“That’s less comforting.”
“It’s honest.”
My mouth curved because jokes came faster than anything honest. “You always bring this much warmth to a rescue?”
Dex turned his head.
For one breath, the porch lost every sound except the wind.
Then Crystal called from inside, “I can hear both of you, and I’m still wanted by the county.”
My eyes closed.
Amusement threatened Dex’s mouth.
“I’ve missed her,” I said.
“I can tell.”
We went back inside.
Crystal sat at the table with the water bottle in both hands and cracker crumbs on her sweater. She sat steadier, though her fingers stayed white around the bottle.
Dex unfolded the paper map from his truck across the table. He didn’t mark it. He used a bottle cap for the cabin, a cracker crumb for the storage place, and his pocketknife laid closed along the road between them.
“This is insulting to cartography,” I said.
“It’s temporary.”
Crystal pointed at the cracker crumb. “That’s the locker?”
“Yes,” Dex said.
“I hope the locker feels respected.”
I pressed my fingers to my mouth.
Crystal smiled, small and tired.
Then Dex tapped the road. “We leave before dawn. Daylight makes the road easier for anyone watching. You know the locker. Crystal has the key. I know how to spot a tail. Phones stay quiet unless I update Annette.”
“I don’t want Annette knowing anything about Crystal,” I said.
“She won’t get Crystal’s exact location from me.”
“Or my name.”
Dex went quiet, and my stomach tightened.
He met me across the table. “I haven’t given North Fork your name.”
Crystal turned to him. “You haven’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His attention stayed on me. “Because once I do, you become part of the case file.”
I had three sharp answers ready.
None of them came out.
Crystal rubbed her thumb over the bottle label. “The storage place is outside Whispering Pines. Past the last strip of businesses before the road widens. One gate. The office closes overnight. My unit is in the back.”
“Save the unit number until we’re moving,” Dex said.
I raised my eyebrows.
He met my stare. “No exact address, no unit number, no attorney number, not while any phone in this cabin can wake up and make trouble.”
“That sounded almost paranoid again.”
“Still experience.”
Crystal nodded. “I can get us there.”
“No public stops,” I said.
“No cabin office,” Crystal added.
“No calling the storage place,” Dex said.
“No using Crystal’s car unless we lose the truck,” I said.
Dex met my stare. “We won’t lose the truck.”
“I’m feeling judged.”
“You should.”
Crystal breathed out a small laugh, then lowered her attention to the map. “If headlights come up behind us, what do I do?”
“You get low behind the front seat until we know who it is,” Dex said.
“I’m not hiding on the floor.”
“You are.”
She glared at me.
I shrugged. “I’m older.”
“By seven minutes.”
“Seven important minutes.”
Dex’s attention moved between us. “That explains a lot.”
“It explains nothing flattering,” Crystal said.
The plan went quiet after that. Not because we had every answer. Because we had the only one that mattered.
Before dawn, we would move.
Until then, the cabin became a place for waiting.
Crystal stretched out on the small sofa under a faded quilt from the bedroom closet. One hand stayed near the chain at her throat, guarding the key even in sleep. I sat on the floor beside her with my back against the sofa and a kitchen knife across my lap.
Dex stood near the front window. “Is that for intruders or for me?”
“It’s versatile.”
“It’s dull.”
“So are some men. They still do damage.”
He accepted that with a nod and checked the road again.
The hours crawled by in floorboard creaks, refrigerator hum, and pine branches dragging softly against the siding.
Dex moved through quiet circuits from window to door to back window and then the road side again.
He kept his body between the outside world and my sister without making a speech out of it.
Sometimes he caught my attention across the room.
Every time, I remembered his thumb moving over my wrist after the cuff opened. I remembered his mouth at my throat. I remembered my name still locked behind my teeth while his was allowed out.
Every time, I turned away first.
We didn’t sleep much.
Dex dozed for twenty minutes in a chair angled toward the door, arms folded, boots planted. I pretended not to watch him. Crystal pretended not to watch me watching him.
Nobody believed anybody.
Before dawn, we packed the cabin without turning on the main lights.
The food went back in the grocery bag. Crystal changed into jeans and a soft green sweater from the duffel she’d brought, then tucked the key chain back under the collar.
I laced my boots properly for the first time since the motel.
Dex checked the road from the porch, came back inside, and picked up the cuffs from the table.
I saw the metal in his hand.
Dex saw me see.
He didn’t hide them. He didn’t offer them. He carried them because he was still Dex.
I could live with that.
The sky was dark when we stepped outside. The mountain air bit cooler before sunrise, sharp with pine and damp dirt. Crystal locked the cabin and slipped the key under the loose porch board where the rental instructions had said to leave it. Her hand shook once.
I caught it and squeezed.
She squeezed back.
Dex opened the rear passenger door of his pickup for Crystal. “Stay low until we’re off the rental road.”
She met his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Thank me when the records are in your attorney’s hands.”
“That seems fair.”
Crystal climbed in and ducked down behind the front seat.
I stood beside the truck, arms folded. “You’re putting me in front?”
Dex shut Crystal’s door and came around to the passenger side. “You want to watch the road?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re in front.”
He opened the passenger door.
Neither of us moved.
The last time I’d sat there, I’d been wearing Crystal’s name and his cuffs. The seat belt had crossed my chest. The console had held his water bottle. His hand had been close enough to stop me from doing something stupid, and I’d done several stupid things anyway.
Now the cab smelled the same, full of leather, dust, pine, and Dex.
He held the door open.
He didn’t call me Crystal.
“Jade,” Dex said.
I stepped onto the running board and got in before I could change my mind.
Dex closed the door, rounded the hood, and slid behind the wheel. He started the engine. Headlights cut low across the dirt track, picking out needles, ruts, and the first pale breath of morning between the trees.
Crystal stayed low in the back.
Dex kept both hands on the wheel.
I watched the side mirror until the cabin disappeared behind the pines.
At the county road, Crystal leaned forward between the seats. “Left.”
Dex turned left.
The cuffs were under Dex’s jacket. Crystal’s key was under her sweater. I kept my eyes on the road ahead, because the next locked door we opened would either set my sister free or make sure none of us got out alive.