Page 74 of You Can Run

The grief hit her then.

It came as a sound, a single, broken noise that left her mouth before she could stop it, something between a gasp and a sob. Her hand came up to her face, pressing hard against her mouth, as if she could push it back in.

She cried standing up, at the glass wall, with the coffee still in her other hand. She cried for the sound of his voice, and for the way his hands had trembled when he'd touched her, and for the fact that the strongest man she'd ever known had been shaking because ofher.

She cried until the coffee went cold in her hand. Then she set the mug on the counter, wiped her face with the back of her wrist, and stood there for a moment, breathing, looking at the ring.

Then she went to find the phone.

The house had a guest tablet on the kitchen counter with a laminated card beside it listing the WiFi code and the property manager's number. At the bottom:For emergencies, a house phone is located in the utility drawer beneath the coffee station.

She found it—a cheap cordless handset, the kind that hadn't been fashionable since 2005. She stood at the counter and stared at it and realized she had no one to call.

Ryan's number was in the burner phone Dante had taken with him. Miller was compromised. Trent was dead. She had no addresses, no contacts, no lifeline that didn't pass through someone who'd already failed her or betrayed her.

She had Santiago.

She didn't have his number. But she had his name and she had Agua Dulce, and that was enough. She pulled the tablet toward her, opened the browser, and searchedSantiago Cruz Agua Dulce Texas. Nothing useful popped up—no social media, and no public listings. She tried the clinic.Agua Dulce medical clinic staff. The third result was a community health center with a phone number and a short list of personnel. His name wasn't on it, but Julian's was—Julian Cruz, RN—listed under the outreach program with a work number.

She dialed it. A receptionist answered, sounding bored. Jessica asked for Julian Cruz and was told he wasn't in today. She asked if there was another number where he could be reached and was told they couldn't give that out.

“Can you give him a message?” Jessica asked. “Can you tell him to call this number? It's a family emergency.”

She read the house phone number off the laminated card and hung up and waited.

Eleven minutes later, the phone rang.

“Who is this?” Julian's voice, careful and tight.

“Julian, it's Jessica. I need to speak to Santiago.”

A pause. She heard a muffled exchange, a door closing, and then Santiago was on the line.

“What happened.” He didn’t phrase it as a greeting or a question, just a flat statement.

“It's Jessica.”

“I know who it is. Where's my brother?”

She'd known the question was coming and she'd spent the last hour finding the words for it and none of them were right. She looked at the Gulf through the glass and said it the only way she could: plainly.

“He's gone, Santiago.”

A beat. “What do you mean, gone.”

“He made a deal. Last night, while I was sleeping, he reached out to the woman who's been hunting us. He arranged to hand himself over in exchange for me walking free.” She paused, her throat tightening. “He left this morning. He walked out the door and went with her and he didn't look back.”

The silence that followed was long enough that she checked the handset to make sure the call was still connected.

She heard Santiago exhale. It was a drawn-out sound, the breath of someone absorbing a blow they'd been half-expecting their whole life.

“He's been running for thirteen years,” Santiago said. “Thirteen years, and he finally gets somewhere that feels like a life and then you come back and he blows it all to hell.”

“I didn't know,” Jessica said. “I swear to you, I didn't know until this morning.”

“I know you didn't know.” He said it quickly, like he didn't want her to misunderstand. “That's not—I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm saying he's been doing this his entire life. Decidingthings alone. Carrying things alone. Not telling the people who love him because he thinks that's the same as protecting them.” His voice cracked on the last word, but she heard it.

Jessica pressed her free hand flat against the counter. There was another silence. She could hear him breathing, could hear the effort it was costing him to stay together. She stood at the counter and waited and let him have what he needed.