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He looks doubtful as he glances behind me and sees the scattered albums and papers. “You sure?”

“You’re way too nosy.” I catch his almost-smile as I put my hands on my hips. “So, this is going to be a regular thing now, this picking us up business?”

He shrugs. “Seems that way. So, are you ready to go get the kid?”

I exhale, realizing I’ve given in without any serious attempt at a fight. “Hang on.” I go to grab my coat, snatching up the note at the last minute, thrusting it deep into the pocket before pulling on my boots and stepping outside with him.

Something stops me halfway to the truck.

“What?” Briggs asks, stopping too.

I look back toward the house. Toward the scattered boxes and emptied-out drawers. Toward the life I thought mattered most before all of this happened.

“I think,” I say, “everything’s changing.”

Briggs studies me. Then he opens the passenger door of the truck.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I think maybe it is.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Briggs

Laurel unfolds Maggie's note for the fourth time before we've even reached the highway.

She’s been quiet for almost ten minutes.

Most people fill silence because they’re scared of what arrives in it. Laurel goes quiet the way other people pace when they’re anxious.

“You eat today?” I ask.

She looks out the passenger window. “The truth?”

“Always.”

“Does coffee count?”

“I think you know it doesn’t.”

“Then I admit nothing.”

I glance over at her briefly while stopping at a light. Face pale and bare of makeup, her beautiful auburn hair twisted up into an endearingly messy bun, Ben’s old sweatshirt almost down to her knees, the hem peeping out from under her coat. She stares at Maggie’s handwriting as if she can force answers from the ink through concentration alone.

She looks softer lately.

Still wound tight enough to snap somebody careless in half. But there’s more slipping through the cracks now than before.

Dry, intelligent humor. Warmth. The strange vulnerable little smile she gets around Lucy when she forgets to monitor herself constantly.

I think about her laughing in the kitchen. Moaning against my mouth. Curled against me afterward looking wrecked and relieved at the same time.

Dangerous thoughts for three in the afternoon.

“You’re staring,” she says without looking up.

“I can’t help it.”

“Maybe you should try harder.”