Page 9 of Liam James
My stomach turned cold.
Fraiser clicked through pictures—crime scene photos I didn’t want to see. A storage unit full of weapons. A missing persons list with names that made my skin crawl.
And then one photo made me freeze.
It was our rental car. The one I’d driven off the bridge after picking up Poppy. Pulled out of the river.
“They’re looking for who was driving,” Fraiser said.
“I rented that car under another name.”
“Do you think your brother has figured that out?” Frasier asked.
Liam’s jaw tightened.
Liam
I caught the flicker of fear in Jenny’s eyes before she looked away. She didn’t want me to see it.
Too late.
She was holding herself together with pure stubbornness, but the cracks were there.
I moved closer, whispering so only she could hear, “He doesn’t get near you. Not while I’m breathing.”
Her gaze lifted to mine, and for a second, the room fell away. It was just us.
“Will school be out in a week?”
“Yes, but I need to take her out now. I won’t take the chance that he'll go to the school and get her. We’ll go somewhere else. He’ll eventually know where we are, now that they found that car.”
We’ll leave in the morning. You can pack a suitcase for yourself and Poppy; we're taking a road trip until Fraiser can find out what’s going on.
“A road trip? Where can we go?”
“We’ll wing it.”
“What are we taking?”
“You’re taking my SUV,” Fraiser said.
“We’ll take my truck,” I said. It’s parked at my Dad’s, he’ll bring it over, and we’ll drive him back home in the morning.
7
Liam
Dad showed up just after nine, his old F-250 rattling into the driveway like it was still 1985. The man never saw a reason to buy a new truck when “the old one ran just fine.” The paint was faded, the seat belts were questionable, but the engine would outlive us all.
He stepped out, baseball cap pulled low, his gray goatee fiercely contrasting his tanned jawline. “You didn’t tell me you had half the Navy SEALs camped out here,” he said, nodding toward Fraiser, Max, and Forest sprawled across the porch like watchdogs. They all stood up to shake his hand.
“They eat a lot but make good guard dogs,” I said. “Thanks for bringing your truck, Dad. You didn’t want to bring mine?”
“Your truck stands out like a sore thumb; it can be spotted a mile away.”
He handed me the keys but kept studying the house, his eyes sharp like he’d been in situations like this before—which, knowing him, he probably had. “You leaving for a while?”
“Road trip,” I said.
