Page 59 of Flame
I can see everything from a different viewpoint now, and the real answer becomes obvious.
“Could it be traced back to you? I know why you were suspended. If something of Faith’s could be tracked to you, it would make you their number one suspect, wouldn’t it?”
“Shut up! You have no fucking idea how high up this goes. If you keep running your goddamn mouth, he’ll come for all of us. I don’t even know how they traced her to me—” He breaks off, his eyes cutting wildly around the room. Copying him, I realize why. It’s been so long since I’ve been here that I’ve missed the scattered cushions thrown haphazardly across the couch. The piles of documents and books scattered among the bookshelves that line the back of the room. Trinkets and knick-knacks clutter the coffee table, and overall, the entire space is a mess.
Which could explain Kaitlin’s unease. She had been worried about “them” coming back. Who?
Maybe the same people currently tearing apart Rafe’s shop.
“Who will come for us?” I ask, picking up on that one word. How he said it—uttered hoarsely with undeniable terror. “Who are you afraid of?”
“Where is it?” Branden demands, advancing toward me again. I snap to awareness and stumble toward the window.
“You weren’t trying to scare me, were you?” I croak. “You were just trying to hide it. Weren’t you? Because eventually, the police would come searching for it. Is that why they were here?”
He stiffens, but I don’t think he even really heard me. He’s too busy fixated on his true aim. “Where the fuck is it, Hannah?”
The hair clip. But if he hid that in advance, then he knew the police would come looking. Meaning anything else that might incriminate him—like a certain series of tapes—must not be in this house either. And then I remember the other unfamiliar object I found among my things.
“Were the tapes on the camera this whole time?”
That catches his attention. He turns around to face me, but I stand firm. For the first time—maybe ever—his glare has no effect on me. I can see through it to the real emotion lurking beneath.
Not concern for me.
Just fear.
“What did you do, Bran?” I ask. “Because whatever it was, it wasn’t because of me. Was it?”
His gaze darkens ominously, and I barely catch the moment he surges toward me. I pivot out of his range, tripping into an end table. An array of materials crash to the floor in a jarring cacophony.
“Is everything okay?” Kaitlin calls from the kitchen.
Branden curses under his breath, and I look up to find him alarmingly close, his hand raised inches from my face. “It’s fine,” he hisses, curling the fingers into a fist.
Soft footsteps start to advance down the hall. “Are you sure, because—”
“Stay in the kitchen, baby.” He starts for the doorway and hesitates, obviously torn between threatening me and maintaining his charade. In the end, his façade wins out. He lunges into the hall, hissing at me from over his shoulder, “Stay here. If you leave, I won’t protect you anymore, Hannah. I mean it.”
I watch him go, and I give myself a second to wallow in the pain. The self-pity. The aching, crushing reality. Those emotions have barely washed over me before a new feeling overrides everything else—the need to run.
I race to the bay window overlooking the backyard. Wrenching it open feels dramatic in so many ways. At least until a set of heavy footsteps approach from the hall. As quietly as I can, I climb onto the ledge and slip through, landing hard beside a hedge.
The noise triggers a flurry of commotion from inside the house, but I don’t stop to see if anyone is behind me. I spot the gate leading from the fenced-in yard and tug on the handle. It’s locked.
“Hannah!”
At the sound of that voice, I scramble over the waist-high fence in a flurry of motion. Pain lances through my hip, and a ripping sound comes from my skirt as the edge of it catches on a spoke of the fence. Wrenching free, I race down the side of the house. My sandals slam against the pavement as I start running, with no real destination in mind but getting away.
Only when I’m out of Branden’s neighborhood, do I finally stop to get my bearings. A series of trees and manicured lawns make up what seems to be a small park. After moving as far from the main road as possible, I adjust my bag's shoulder strap and nearly choke on a sudden realization. Sure enough, I fumble through it and easily find my cell phone.
All this time, I could have called the police—someone else for help.
Could not doing so be written off as fear? Or is the need to protect Branden too ingrained in my being to overcome so easily?
Even now, my fingers shake with indecision as I consider calling one contact in particular. Rafe really was behind those texts for all I know—he even admitted to communicating with Faith.
Trusting him could be running into another trap.
