Page 74 of Undertow

“Nope.” Cara had looked at the phone in her hand. “But it’ll work. Graham won’t be able to help himself. He’ll come.”

That had been twelve hours ago. Now it was morning, and the team had been acting weird for ten minutes.

Reagan was arranging and rearranging a first aid kit that had been packed since last night. Tom checked a zipper on a gear bag, over and over again. Piper had announced she needed to take a very long time brushing her teeth. Wade stood by the cabin door holding his keys and looking at the ceiling with the patience of a man who had decided he would outlast everyone else’s nonsense.

“What?” Cara addressed the room, finally.

Reagan zipped the first aid kit. Tom zipped his bag. Piper stuck her head out of the bathroom with foam at the corners of her mouth, looked at the room, then retreated.

Wade let out a sigh. He side-eyed Cara. Then Gabe. Then Cara, again. “You two, need a minute.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“A minute. Together. Talk.” Wade’s tone was that of a man explaining long division to a very slow child. “The rest of us will be outside. You two talk.”

“We do not need a minute,” Cara said.

“We’re fine,” Gabe agreed.

Wade pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re not fine. Take the minute, or Piper will make you read her ridiculously long list of reasons why you need to talk.”

From the bathroom: “Ooh, I totally will!”

“Wade,” Cara said, “whatever you think is going on⁠—”

Ignoring her, he opened the cabin door. “You have sixty seconds.”

Reagan swept past Cara with the first aid kit and a smirk that could have cut glass. Tom followed, his ears slightly red. Elena made it out the door with her face carefully turned toward the floor.

Piper was the last one. She paused long enough to mouth, “I love this for you,” at Cara before Wade shoved her gently through the door.

The door closed behind them.

Gabe fingered his phone charger. “Well, so.”

Cara shuffled her feet. “Yeah.”

Outside, Wade’s voice: “Sixty seconds!”

Cara opened her mouth. Closed it.

“When this is over,” Gabe said.

She nodded. “When this is over.”

Gabe reached for the front door.

Not meeting their eyes, Wade cocked his head. “In the truck.”

The ride to Pacific Crest passed in a silence nobody needed to fill.

Wade pulled the SUV into a fire road on the south side of the hospital property. Tom and Elena slipped out. Elena had her hair pinned up to shave ten years off her face, a pair of drugstore reading glasses, and a patient ID lanyard Tom had cloned from the facility’s visitor system. Tom wore the kind of uniform a maintenance contractor wore when he didn’t want to be noticed—gray work pants, gray jacket, a laminated ID on a retractable lanyard, a soft-sided tool bag over one shoulder. They would wait at the service entrance until the food tray deliveries came through and the back corridors were busy. Elena knew the schedule.

Cara reached for Elena’s hand. “You know the way.”

Elena squeezed back. “I know the way.”

Tom and Elena headed for the woods. Wade pulled back onto the main road.