Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
They march us to the hatch. The world is gray and cold. The dock smells like rope. My legs remember how to walk. At the top of the gangway, Etta stops us with a hand.
“One more thing,” she says.
Juno turns her head. “What.”
“Stay away from Karen tonight,” Etta says. “Let Bob tell her without you in the room.”
“You don’t get to ask that,” Juno says.
“I’m not asking,” Etta says. “I’m telling you how to keep her safe from the whiplash you’re about to cause.”
Juno breathes once. “She’s stronger than you think.”
“I know exactly how strong she is,” Etta says. “It’s not the point.”
Coleman is already moving away, bored again, talking into his phone. The muscle guide us down the gangway and off the dock. No one runs. No one shouts. It almost looks normal.
On the walkway, Juno stops. She turns. She looks straight at Bob.
“You put a price on my sister,” she says. “You put a price on me.”
He shakes his head, desperate. “I didn’t—”
“You did,” she says. “Go home. Tell my mother. Then call Detective Huxley and tell her everything, including what you just did to us.”
He nods, broken. “I will.”
“Good,” she says, and then she turns and we walk.
We don’t talk until we hit the parking lot. I text Knight a single pin. His car pulls in two minutes later. Render appears from nowhere and takes a picture of the stern of Laurel Nine, casual as a tourist, then deletes it in front of me and nods. Gage texts: Signal lost at shop. You good? I send back alive and nothing else.
In the car, Juno stares at her hands, then at me. “I thought we were going to die,” she says, voice small.
“I did too,” I say. “But we didn’t.”
She nods and swallows. “Seventy-two hours,” she says, like she’s putting a timer in the air between us. “Then we end them.”
“We do it clean,” I say. “No more rooms without witnesses.”
She exhales. “Okay.”
I take her hand. She doesn’t pull away. We drive, slow, quiet, out of the marina, into a city that has no idea how close it came to losing us today. We have a window. We’re going to use every minute.
39
Juno
The seventy-two hours crawl.
We keep our promise: no episode drops, no posts, no bait. Arrow deletes the draft I wrote at 2 a.m. with shaking hands and the title Everyone Knows What You Did. I don’t argue. I color. I eat because he puts food in front of me and stares until I chew. We sleep in shifts that look like naps.
Day one, Bob resigns. The statement hits at 4:52 p.m., two paragraphs of “time with family” and “gratitude for the opportunity.” He doesn’t say ethics review or outside pressure or I’m sorry. Karen calls me, voice tight.
“Did you know?” she asks.
“Not all of it,” I say. “I knew enough.”
She breathes for a long time. “I have casseroles in the freezer,” she says. “That always felt like a joke about grief. Now it isn’t.”
Day two, I meet Chloe in a beige room with a metal table and write out, in my own hand, what happened on the dock and on the boat. I put down the names: Coleman. Etta. Bob. I put down D4 and Laurel Nine. I sign. She slides me water and nothing like pity.
“You’ll see movement soon,” she says.
Day three, my phone buzzes at 7:11 a.m.
Chloe: Today.
Where should I not be.
Chloe: Your mother’s street.
I’m across it already.
Arrow is with me, hands in his jacket pockets, eyes on every moving thing. We stand behind a maple tree and watch my childhood block come awake: sprinklers, a jogger who always waves, Mrs. Delaney dragging her trash can in slippers.
Two unmarked sedans roll to the curb in front of my old house. A marked car parks behind them. Another one drifts past and circles like it’s looking for an address. No sirens. No gun belts on display. Nice and quiet.
Chloe steps out of the first sedan in that navy blazer and T-shirt again. (Different slogan: NO ONE IS ABOVE THE RULES. I try not to smile, and I fail.) A plainclothes partner I’ve never met flanks her. They walk up the path like they’re delivering mail.
The door opens. Bob stands there in a polo and a stunned expression. I can’t hear what Chloe says, but I see the way she keeps her hands visible and calm. I see his mouth shape the word now? She nods once. He turns his head and says something into the hallway.
My mother appears behind him, robe tied hard, hair down. She sees Chloe. She sees the cars. She looks across the street. She sees me. For a second she doesn’t move at all, like a photo. Then she straightens her shoulders and nods once to me, a signal I don’t understand yet and will probably unpack for the rest of my life.