“Four days. Now we have four. What are we going to do? We have to figure it out.” Her voice rises and she’s starting to sound hysterical. “They think I know what they want. I don’t know. I thought you’d know. What do we do, Amy?”

Call Liam, I think, but she’s so off the deep end I don’t dare press to involve him. I grab her arms this time, leveling her in a stare. “We’ll be okay.” I nearly cringe at the words I’ve forbidden Liam from saying to me. “We’ll figure it out.”

She inhales and lets it out on a choppy nod. The attendant passes and I release her to grab him, eager for a blanket. “Fifteen dollars for a blanket and pillow,” the uniformed man informs me.

I feel myself pale and some of the bravado of seconds before fades. I have no money, no phone, no resources.

“I got it,” Meg offers quickly and pays the man for a pillow and blanket for each of us.

Unwrapping mine, I snuggle beneath it, and remind myself that one phone call to Liam, and my situation changes. I’m choosing to give away control, and that is control, as he would say. My confidence returns.“What’s the plan once we get to your car?”

“We don’t have one.”

Wonderful. Terrific. “Do you have money? Can we get a cheap motel?”

“Yes. I have enough.”

“Albany isn’t a huge place and it’s a logical location to get off the train from what I could tell from looking at the destinations in the train station. Believe me when I say I’ve learned the hard way that logical choices are dangerous. We should pick a large metropolitan city outside of New York and then stop to rest.”

“Yes. Okay.”

Now she has the “okay” disease. It’s almost as bad as the “do nothing” disease I’ve lived for six years. I sink back into the seat.

“So what’s the closest big city?”

“Philadelphia, maybe.” She frowns. “It’s kind of backtracking so that might be smart. But really why hide out? They’ve found us already and they have Chad.”

“What happens when they decide they don’t need us but we know too much?” I ask.

“Right. Big city it is.” She takes out her phone and checks the internet. “Philly is less than four hours.”

“Philly it is then,” I agree.

I settle my pillow under my head. “We should try to sleep. It’s still a long drive on no rest.”

She hugs me. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Inching backwards, she tilts her head and drags her hand down my long, blonde hair. “You’re beautiful like he was.”

Discomfort ticks down my spine and I manage an awkward, “Thank you, we should rest.”

She nods and shrinks down in her seat.

I roll to my side, giving her my back and I cannot shake her choice of words. As beautiful as he was.

It’s several hours later when we exit the train station and reach Meg’s expensive grass-green Volvo. “Chad bought it for me,” she says, reading the question in my eyes.

“Nice choice,” I murmur, but as I settle into the plush leather seat, thankful for the seat warmers, the car bothers me. I was barely surviving most of the time and Chad paid cash for her Volvo, and he had to pay to park in Manhattan. It doesn’t feel right, but then Chad couldn’t just hand me extra money. It would have brought attention to him and me.

With my driving time coming up, I can feel the heaviness of exhaustion in my body, and I close my eyes, willing myself to rest since I hadn’t on the train. I have to consider my health and I need a clear mind to decide what to do next. Four days is all I have left to discover what has been a six year mystery. And even if I do, it won’t be as simple as figuring out what these people want. It’s figuring out how we get these people what they want and how not to get killed in the process. I wonder why in Meg’s panic she hasn’t thought of this.

I will an image of Chad to my mind and a smile curls on my lips when I can clearly see his face. Chad...

I wave goodbye to my best friend Dana as she pulls her Volkswagen out of the drive and I run up the stairs, stopping dead in my tracks on the top step, my eyes going wide at the sight of Chad sitting in the corner on one of the two outdoor chairs.

“Chad!” I rush him and he’s on his feet at the same instant I fling myself around him. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He’s been away forever it seems, first at college and then in Egypt. “Is Dad with you?”

“Yeah, but you know, he and Mom have to catch up.” He wiggles a brow. “At least they have a door. Those tent sessions they used to have could get awkward.”

I laugh and we settle into the seats. He kisses my head. “How’s school?”

“Miserable,” I confess. “I want to be in the field with you and Dad. So does Mom.”

“Finish school. It’s good for you.”

“You left college.”

“Dad needed me in the field and I didn’t leave. I’m working for school credit and you know I have windows of time when I’m in class.”

“Right. I guess.”

He sighs.“How’s Luke?”

“He took off to college in Austin.”

“Good thing I’m not there much. Don’t like the way the bastard looks at you. He’s lucky I don’t beat his ass.”

A hotspot forms in my chest. I’ve missed how he protects me. I miss our family. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“He’s a user, known for bed-hopping and then bragging afterwards. I don’t want you becoming a conquest.”

“Like you don’t bed-hop.”

“Out of necessity and because I’m not a one woman kind of man. I don’t live a life that supports a girlfriend, but I don’t brag and I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

Because he’s a goodbye waiting to happen. “When do you leave again?”

“Two days.”

The hotspot is now an ache. Two days. “Oh.”

“We’ll be back for your eighteenth birthday.”

In six months. I guess I’m supposed to cheer up now.

A loud sound jolts me and I sit up. “What happened?”

“We need gas,” Meg announces, and I glance around to find we’re at a gas station and her door is open. “You’ve been asleep about an hour.”

“Asleep,” I repeat, and frown with Luke’s name in my head. Luke. I know why I dreamed of my brother, but why does Luke keep showing up in my dreams? At least they are dreams, not flashbacks with blackouts, I remind myself.

“Want anything from inside?” Meg asks.

My stomach rumbles. “I need a snack, but I think I’ll go to the bathroom.”

“Just get whatever you want and put it at the register.” She climbs out of the car and shuts the door.

Grabbing my purse, I go still with a memory. My fake boss in Denver was named Luke. My fist balls over my racing heart. Chad had been trying to tell me he was alive. Don’t like the way the bastard looks at you. He’s lucky I don’t beat his ass. No. Chad, being bossy, macho Chad, had been trying to tell me he was about to beat Liam’s ass.

“Damn it,” I whisper. “He’s not the enemy.”

Shoving open the door and shivering against the cold, I glance at Meg over the hood. “I’m freezing. I really need clothes and a coat of some sort to make it the next few days.”

“Oh gosh, yes. I’m sorry.” She pops the trunk and opens it, displaying a couple of suitcases, unzipping one and handing me a jacket with a hood. “We can grab you some stuff on the road, too.”

I nod and slip on the jacket. “Any idea why Chad would have put a camera in the computer you gave me to use back in Denver?”

She snorts and shuts the trunk. “Yeah. He didn’t trust Liam Stone. He was determined to find a connection between him and the men he was in trouble with.”

I was right. The name Luke had been no accident, but it’s just creepy thinking my brother would tape me. What if he’d seen Liam and I having sex? Did he? The thought is choke-worthy. I refocus on Meg. “Did Chad find a connection to Liam?”