Banshee's boots crunch on the gravel as he walks up beside me. He doesn't say anything. He just stands there with his hand resting easy on the grip of his sidearm.
Todd looks at the gun. He puts the Explorer in reverse. He backs down the county road slowly and turns at the access point and drives south.
Banshee and I stand at the gate and watch the dust settle behind him.
After a long stretch of silence, Banshee speaks. "That ain't the last we'll be seein' of him."
"I know."
"You want me to put a tracker on his Explorer?"
"Already on it. Has been since the day he showed up on her porch."
He nods once.
I head back to my bike and head back home.
After I park, I let myself into the cabin with the spare key. Hadley meets me at the door before I get it closed. She doesn't ask anything right away. She just looks at my face.
I pull her against my chest. Her forehead presses against the spot under my collarbone where it fits. I hold her there for a moment. "He's gone, baby."
"What did he say?"
"Nothin' you need to worry your pretty little head about."
She pulls her face back and looks up at me. Her eyes are steady. "Tell me anyway."
"He was unravelin'. His work called him in for a meeting tomorrow. He doesn't know what it means yet, but he knows it's bad. He came here because you were the last clean person in his life and he wanted to use you to make himself feel like he wasn't drownin'."
She breathes out slowly. "Is he comin' back?"
"He'll try."
"And?"
"And I told him what would happen if he did."
She holds my eyes. "Good."
She steps back. She picks the dishtowel up off the kitchen counter where she dropped it and goes back to the dishes.
The dishtowel moves in her hand in steady circles, her shoulders loose and her chin up.
She is the steadiest woman I have ever known.
I sit back down at the desk. Hadley has taken Nash and the worksheet into the kitchen at some point. The pencil-scratching has moved with them. Diesel is on the rug in the front room with one ear up.
I'm about to pull the Hartley feed when my burner rings.
The burner. The one in the back of the drawer that hasn't rung in ten years.
I look at it. I know who it is before I pick it up. I open the drawer, take it out, and look at the number on the screen.
A number I memorized in another life.
I answer. I don't speak.
The voice on the other end is calm. Even. The kind of even that comes out of a man who has been trained out of his own emotions. "Rogue… or should I use the other name."
