“Really? Right now?” Winnie said. “Can’t it wait until morning?”
Deke sighed. “We have a BOLO out for that hunter. Would sure love to get more details.”
“Yeah. Sorry, Deke.” Gregg patted Winnie’s hand. “He drove a truck—manila-colored, dirty. I didn’t recognize it. And the rest was ... fast.” He glanced at Daniel, and Harley took that as her cue to keep drawing. She added a big bone at the dog’s feet and gave the pup a long tail.
“Frankly, I was just trying to ... keep...”
“I get it,” Deke said. “Jericho said the man had a twisted nose—”
“Flattened, like it might have been broken, once upon a time. But in all honesty, I didn’t get a good look at him. I did have the sense he had ... skills. I think we got lucky with that storm.”
Huh. That’s not how she’d put it. But maybe...
“Okay. Well, I contacted Rio and he’s setting up a safe house for you all while we track this hunter down.”
“And while Mars is still at large,” Gabe added.
“Mm-hmm. We’ll find him, Adam.”
And it nudged her again—wait. She turned, looked at Deke. “You don’t seem all that surprised to see ... um, my brother.”
Deke’s face sort of paled then, and he drew in a breath. “Um ... so...”
“You knew?”
“Harley,” Jericho said.
She glanced at Jericho. “Don’t tell me you knew too.”
Jericho’s eyes widened. “What? No. I just got here.”
But she’d found her feet as the tucked-away question simply roared back to her. Her voice fell. “Gabe, am I the only, um, person you cared about who didn’t...”
He met her eyes. “Harls—”
Her chest knotted, cutting off her breath. She held up her hand, forced a smile at Daniel. “Buddy, I’ll see you ’round, okay?”
“Bye, Auntie Hawley.”
She couldn’t speak. Sunni, however, reached out to her as she backed away.
“We had to make choices, Harl—”
Harley stared at Gabe and held up her hand, the words from the cabin rushing back to her.“You would have lookedfor me.”
Oh.
Shewas the problem.
She turned then and made for the door.
Orlando had scrambled to his feet, and she nearly tripped over him but pushed past and out into the hallway.
Stalked down it, away, toward the stairwell, not sure where she might be going.
Just ... away.Away!
“Harley!”