Chapter Twenty-Five
Regan
We take the back roads all the way to the house. I have to pull over and let Jack drive, because I’m trembling too hard to
even grip the steering wheel. Everything in the world has been flipped upside down and somehow, I’m supposed to comprehend
all of it and make life-altering decisions immediately. I can’t. I don’t know what to do yet.
“There’s a motel thirty miles out of town that takes cash—sort of off the grid. It’s a shithole, but it’s a good place to
stay under the radar until you decide what you want. Of course it’s your decision, but I also don’t know how I can let you
stay—now that they know I’m alive—now that we know you’re a target.”
“What about Hallie? Is she safer at my parents’ for now or should she come right away?
Jesus. How do I take everything she knows away from her?
Her grandparents, friends, her whole life.
How do I explain that? How do we just disappear and let my parents think her daughter and grandchild are dead?
It’s so absurd—it’s . . . How does someone do that?
” I ask, swallowing down the tears, my mind spinning as the ramifications start to sink in.
“Because their lives depend on it.”
“What if we all band together?” I say, desperate. “We tell my family and we all protect each other—we . . . I don’t know . . .”
Then I think about the night of the Labor Day party and how my car burst into millions of pieces with Ally inside and how
bits of her flesh were found blocks away from the explosion. I think about how it was supposed to be me.
“These people don’t usually miss. The fact that some act of God happened and Ally Whitlock, who’s never driven your car before,
randomly had reason to need it, it’s astounding you’re here. Either of us. If you’d seen the things I’ve seen . . .” He stops,
leans his head back and blows out a hard breath. “The police are afraid of them. It doesn’t matter anyway, because they’ll
do whatever they want right under the cops’ noses. They have such a network of protection, they’re not afraid to do it. Kids
aren’t immune to the danger. These guys don’t care who they hurt.”
“That can’t be true. Hal is just an innocent kid who doesn’t know anything about any of this. Why would they . . . This is
a fucking nightmare,” I say, and I wish I didn’t know any of it. I wish I could go back in time and pretend none of this was
happening. I suppose maybe knowing is saving my life, but it’s all too much to bear.
“Two hours later and it would have been you and Hallie in that car, not Ally Whitlock.” I don’t have words to respond to this. It’s true. And it’s not Jack’s fault all of this is happening. It’s his nightmare, too.
“They wouldn’t want you if they had me. Sometimes I think about just surrendering to it all. Since I found out they knew where
you were, I’ve thought about it—that I should just give myself up. If it means you two are safe, maybe it’s the only thing
left to do.”
“No!” I practically scream. “Jesus. No.”
I hold my spinning head in my hands and bury it in my lap and just try to breathe. Mafia. That’s the word that keeps swirling
in my mind. An organized crime ring that I’m caught up in because of something my husband saw by mistake a decade ago. It
can’t be real. Running and hiding and looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives—leaving my family, traumatizing
my kid even more. This can’t be real life.
When we pull into the driveway of our house, Jack stays in the car to keep watch and I go inside to grab as much stuff as
I can—Hallie’s clothes and favorite things, an overnight bag for myself and the important documents I keep in the safe. I
have an eerie feeling like I’m being watched. I move, sobbing, from room to room, shaking, feeling like I did as a kid when
I truly feared a monster in the shadows at the ready to reach out and grab me at any moment. But the house was locked and
the security cameras are clear.
I pause when I step outside onto the porch with my bags. I look into the thick of trees on either side and down the narrow
road in front of the house, but nobody comes out to capture us. Jack jogs up and takes a couple of the bags for me. We push
all of it into the hatchback and then we start to drive.
We have a couple of hours before school is out and we have to decide what the safest thing to do is with Hallie, so we decide to drive out to dinner away from town.
“They won’t kill us in broad daylight in front of a crowded restaurant,” I say, and Jack glances sideways at me—a look that
says “if you say so.”
“They shouldn’t be looking for us there,” is all he says instead, and so we again take the long back roads into the drizzly
rural outskirts, and I pray quietly to myself, still not shaking the feeling I’m being . . . followed. Maybe it’s paranoia,
but ever since we were at the house, I feel like eyes are on me. Could someone have been lying there in wait?
I get a notification on my phone and look at it, but I don’t understand it.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“It’s Carson. He said Andi is gone. Nobody can find her. He’s home with Roxie and Drew—you know, her daughter, and Drew, Sasha’s
kid, and they think something’s happened to her.”
“Who’s Sasha?” he asks, and it dawns on me I have this whole life he doesn’t know about. Even though it feels like no time
has passed, a lifetime has gone by.
“You don’t think her missing could have to do with what’s happening here? Whoever is after us?”
“You told me everyone thinks she killed Tia and now Tia shows up dead. Town’s too small for all of this to be a coincidence.”
I think about everything he’s told me—all of the timeline and details—and one thing keeps coming back to mind, standing out
against the rest of the shocking story.
“That guy—the one you testified against. He’s still in prison, you said.”
“Yes.”
“So this isn’t like you owe someone money. It’s personal. His family is the one after you for putting this guy away.”
“He said on the stand, in front of God and everyone, he wouldn’t rest until I was dead. Personal is an understatement. Why?”
Jack says.
“The photo. He just looks familiar. Of course I don’t know him, don’t recognize his name, but . . .” I am scrolling through
my social media, looking for a photo from last year’s annual Christmas party. Then I turn the phone around and show him. “He
looks a little like a friend of mine.”
Jack glances over and his face goes white as a ghost. He screeches on the brakes and pulls over.
“Where did you . . . Jesus. How do you . . .” But he’s distracted by something in the rearview mirror. He stops midsentence
and starts to drive again, but I can see now that he’s trembling.
“We’re being followed,” he says.
“What?”
“A pickup truck.”
“How do you know that? Maybe they’re just—”
But he interrupts me. “You know that man in the photo? The guy I put away— That’s his brother. Part of the family that wants
us dead. Regan. My God.” He runs his hand through his hair. “That’s his fucking brother and you know him? How? God!” he scoffs.
“They moved in a few months ago. To town.”
“I don’t understand,” he says, and then suddenly a deafening pop pierces the air and I realize that it’s gunshots. This is
really happening.
“Get down!” Jack yells, pushing on my head and speeding up. I clutch my chest and duck my head down, shaking so uncontrollably I can barely breathe.
Another shot is fired, and I hear the explosion of one of the tires being struck and the clanging of the car bouncing and
crashing on the pavement, the smell of burning rubber in the air. Then the screech of metal on the road as our car skids out
of control and is forced to stop.
Jack jumps out and tells me to run, but we’re in a rural spot, parked in a gravel pull-off with only a stretch of field and
prairie grass for several yards before the cluster of trees in the distance. We’re targets. I’m too afraid to run. I freeze,
but then he yells again for me to run, and he points to the other side of the street at the ravine that leads down to a creek
thick with trees, but before I can even make my first step, I see a hooded figure running at us like in every nightmare I’ve
ever had. It’s almost happening in slow motion. I leap out of the car, looking for Jack. I see him turn to look behind us
and then within seconds the man in the hooded jacket is there. He holds out his arm, aiming right at Jack, and shoots.
He strikes Jack in the chest, and Jack drops to the ground. The man is running back to the truck, and then I hear the engine
rev as the tires skid on the gravel before it flies off down the road, kicking up debris, disappearing behind a cloud of dust
before it’s gone. It’s all so fast it feels like a hazy dream as I look down at Jack’s body and see the blood blooming through
his pale T-shirt. He’s motionless.
“No! God, no!” I drop to my knees and scream until my lungs give out.