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An afternoon at Virtues with the lights up. Handful and Austen were there when Wren stepped up to the pole and made a turn look easy. I was supposed to be working. When she got her shoes back on, my phone lit up with eleven letters that had me looking over at her instead of the laptop. She knew exactly what she’d sent.

What I’d done here hadn’t gone away. But it wasn’t the only thing I could remember anymore.

I turned the light off and shut the door.

❧

Dutch called church at nine on Friday.

“Tilden,” he said as soon as the gavel hit the table.

Handful leaned back in his chair. “They’re renewing. They want us at two more facilities.”

“Send me the plans,” I said. “I’ll start on the advance when I get back.”

Dutch turned the page. “Dependents list?”

“It’s done,” String said. “Everybody’s on the new arrangement, all confirmed, except we’ve got a gap.”

I looked up. A fucking gap? No way.

“What gap?”

String looked over at me and grinned. “Glitch’s kid isn’t on it.”

Nobody moved.

“Right,” Dutch said. “Glitch. You want her on the family schedule?”

I sat there.

A name on a form, the same kind of paperwork that had led me to Kettlewell. “Wren said yes,” I said. “I asked before I left.”

“Her name’s Sparrow,” I said.

“I know her name, brother. I’m asking about the form.”

“Sparrow Kerrisk.”

Nobody said anything. Colt looked at the table. Holden didn’t.

“Kerrisk,” Dutch said.

“That’s the name on her birth certificate.” I looked around the table. “I’m not asking her to change it, and I don’t want anybody else saying anything about it either.”

Dutch let it sit for a second. “Put Sparrow Kerrisk on the family schedule,” he said to String. “Under Glitch. Flag the surname difference so nobody sends Wren something with the wrong name and makes a thing of it.”

“Yeah,” String said, writing.

Dutch cleared the business and then didn’t stand up “One more thing,” he said. “Not club. Everybody stays.”

I knew immediately this had been arranged. Every man at the table except me had known it was coming.

Colt got up, and put his hands on the back of his chair. “We should’ve gone after Wren,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ve been thinking about that night for a year.” He looked at the door. “We saw her face. None of us thought she was lying. Dutch started asking questions about the video, but Wren was already gone.”