Page 154 of The Final Cut

Some of the heat in his face eases.

I do not deserve full credit for ignorance, so I move him along before either of us gives it weight. “What did she say?”

Shiloh looks toward the hallway where the girls disappeared. “After Reva saw her, Deacon took her to Cal. I went to the chapel. Marisol was still there.”

“You left Cal?”

“With Deacon and Reva, yes.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Isabel had Delia after the massacre. Cal had Reva. Deacon made the opening and protected the lie that Isabel’s orders had been carried out. Isabel believed Reva had been killed, at least at first. Marisol had a choice: go with Cal and Reva and leave Delia completely under Isabel, or stay where she could soften whatever she could.” His voice goes rough. “She chose the daughter who didn’t have Cal.”

Silence moves through the kitchen.

A pipe ticks somewhere in the wall. Rain taps against the terrace glass. Outside the suite door, one of my men shifts his stance.

Ever steps into the kitchen doorway. He has the laptop tucked under one arm, eyes grim. “That tracks, and honestly…I can’t altogether blame her.”

“Yes,” I say.

Shiloh’s gaze drops to the coffee I am not drinking. “Marisol said Deacon carried messages when he could. Proof of life, never place. Cal sent school photos with backgrounds cut away. Coded notes. Pieces. Enough for her to know Reva lived, but never enough for Isabel to trace her if the messages fell into the wrong hands.”

I stare into the mug.

I think of Reva as she arrived here tonight, shaking in Shiloh’s hands because the floor of her entire life had shifted under her. I think of Delia on a hotel bed trying to coax her sister into sleep. I think of Cal in ICU, silent with the truth locked behind sedation and a tube.

This family is an open wound.

“And the attack?” I ask.

Shiloh’s face hardens. “Tail picked us up after the hospital. Dark sedan. I tested it. It followed. I called Ever before it got messy.”

“It got really messy,” Ever says.

Shiloh gives him a look. “That’s one way to describe a man leaning out a window and shooting at us.”

Ever ignores that. “The sedan had been waiting two blocks from the hospital. Not directly outside. Smart enough to avoid our static team, close enough to catch an unscheduled exit.”

“Isabel?” I ask.

“Likely,” Ever says. “The men we pulled from the vehicle are being identified. One dead. Two left for police with the right items missing. My people got plates, prints, weapons photos, and phones before disengaging, but it’s obvious who it was, what their goal was.”

Shiloh looks at me. “It might not have been because of Marisol. It might’ve been Reva. Or Deacon. Or us after the swamp. Hell, maybe they’ve had eyes near the hospital all day and got lucky.”

Ever’s mouth tightens. “Luck with Isabel usually has a payroll.”

He is right.

That is the problem.

I set the coffee down untouched. “Extra men?”

“Already at the hospital,” Ever says. “Two backing Deacon on the ICU floor, one in the lobby, one in the garage, one on the exterior watching the staff entrances. I shifted a clean team from the hotel perimeter to cover the route back if Deacon moves Cal or if Marisol becomes a target.”

“If Marisol is not already one.”

Shiloh’s expression changes.