Page 135 of No Good Fight

I pick up the phone as I cross toward the bathroom anyway because some part of me is still trying to reconcile what I already know. I shove the door wider and check behind it, stare at the empty shower, then turn toward the hallway while reading the first message.

Unknown: No text. Just a photo where Mrs. Vance is tied to a chair.

Her bandaged hand is secured to the armrest. Her cane is broken on the floor beside her. I’ve seen enough fear in Alex’s face over the last several weeks to know exactly what that picture did to her when she saw it, and I know her well enough to understand what came next before I finish reading.

Unknown: She should have stayed out of it.

Unknown: Come alone.

Unknown: No Ryder. No police. No brother.

Unknown: Trade yourself for her, Alexandra. Or I finish teaching her what happens when someone touches what’s mine.

Unknown: You have 24 hours until she dies.

I make it halfway down the hall before another message stops me.

Unknown: You have until dawn now. Old Mason Ridge maintenance building. Service road. No phone. No Ryder. No police. Every minute you’re late is one she feels.

There’s a video beneath it. I press play because I need everything Alex saw, even if every instinct in me is screaming to get outside and start driving. Mrs. Vance appears in the same chair with her mouth uncovered, looking furious enough to start another war despite the bruising beginning to show around one side of her face. Preston says Alex’s name from somewhere off camera. Mrs. Vance turns her head toward him and spits before the video ends.

I stare at the black screen for a second after it stops.

Alex knew about this while she was downstairs with all of us.

She knew when she told her mother she needed rest. She knew when she hugged Josh goodbye. She knew when she took my hands and let me help her upstairs. She knew when she stood in front of me barely able to keep her balance and told me she almost died before she could say something important.

I love you, Ryder.

The memory doesn’t feel the same anymore.

It was true. I know it was true. That almost makes it worse, because she wasn’t finally saying the words because the fire had scared the last of the hesitation out of her. She was saying them because she had already decided she was going to leave me.

I turn toward the bedroom again and see the empty side of the bed, her clothes gone from the floor, her phone deliberately placed where my hand would find it when I woke.

She didn’t forget it.

She left evidence.

By the time I get downstairs, I have jeans on and nothing else. I nearly miss the bottom step because I’m reading the security tablet before both feet reach the floor. All of the alarms are active. The system itself is still armed. No footage has been deleted, no logs cleared, and she didn’t touch the front cameras at all.

She just turned off the notifications so she could go.

My chest hurts when I understand why.

Alex didn’t try to disappear.

She made sure she could leave before I woke up, and then she made sure I could reconstruct exactly how she did it.

The garage feed gives me the timestamp, and my eyes go immediately to the pale morning light pushing through the windows. Dawn is already here. Whatever time Preston gave her has run out, which means Alex isn’t still on her way to Mason Ridge. She should already be there, alone with him, while I was asleep upstairs believing she was safe beside me.

I pull up the feed just to make sure I’m not crazy.

Alex appears in the corner of the garage wearing my hoodie, one hand against the wall while she bends to put on her shoes. She stops once and closes her eyes, standing there long enough that I almost reach toward the screen like I can steady her from here. Then she forces herself upright, takes the spare key from her pocket, and gets into my truck.

She never once looks at the camera.

She doesn’t have to.