Chapter 2

"You only liewhen it's necessary."

I look down at my hands. Ballet slippers pepper my nails, colored with a pale pink nail polish I've grown to hate. My cuticles are a result of my nerves—freshly bitten and picked. I've been ignoring what was "right" for months.

"Might as well be a liar now," I mumble, shaking my head.

I'm frustrated, and that energy has my nerves graduating toward anger and sarcasm. A winning combination. I don't know where we're headed or for how long. The only certainty is the mess I'm leaving in my wake. I take a deep breath. You can do hard things.

The sound of the window cracking open drowns out the low bravado of Johnny Cash crooning away on the radio.

"He would be proud of you." The way she exhales while saying it makes it clear that encouraging or kind words are not something she typically offers. I would guess that needing to console an "asset" would be par for the course in her line of work. But maybe that's not her strong suit. When I study her from across the cab of the truck, it's too dark to tell if the way she grips the steering wheel tightly and scratches at the side of her face is her tell. If she's shoveling shit to keep me from spiraling, or if she's just not used to saying things like this to people like me. She may have known my father professionally, but she sure as hell didn't know him as a father.

My dad used to tell me regularly how proud he was—I don't need that reminder from her. Even when I was doing nothing other than giving him an ulcer. No matter how many jobs I cycled through, the end of one always came with a "you'll find what feels right, kiddo." Even when I'd come home crying and wouldn't tell him exactly why, he'd always say "that boy never deserved you." It didn't matter what it was, he always told me things would be okay. And that I'd figure it out. "You can do hard things, Laney. Never forget it. You're a Shaw."

But right now, my dad would be disappointed. And he'd be angry. Pissed off that a monster crossed my path. The kind of monster that he spent his life trying to prevent from hurting anyone—and especially anyone he loved. He'd be disappointed at what I've become. I know I am. I blink back the tears blurring my vision.

"Agent–"

She cuts me off. "Just Bea. Get used to calling me Bea."

"Fine. Bea. I don't need you telling me what my father might have thought of this situation. That's not going to win me over. I'm on your side. I'm pissed at myself..." I grit out. "No, you know what? I'm pissed at a lot of things right now. Myself for—" I shake my head at the reason why I was even in that place for as long as I had been. "I'm pissed at that monster for existing, for hurting people and uprooting my life. But I know exactly how my father would be feeling if he were here."

She gives me a tight-lipped smile. "I know you didn't ask for any of this, and you had a life?—"

I lean my head back against the headrest with a small laugh that stops her from finishing that sentence. My life was in the midst of the deepest nosedive. I had a life. One I was finally proud of building, and I tarnished it. I justified doing the wrong thing. Maybe that monster was my punishment. I cringe at the thought of the universe being so cruel. I made some bad decisions, but I didn't deserve this. His victim didn't deserve this. Squeezing my eyes closed, I pinch the bridge of my nose. The headache that's been dull and throbbing has moved to a more stabbing pain behind my right eye. Great, a migraine to add to the fun.

Being awake for more than twenty-four hours, I'm emotional and not thinking logically. The adrenaline that buzzed through my veins, pushing me through this nightmare, has worn off. I just need sleep.

"I have always listened to my gut, Laney. And it's telling me this relocation needs to stay quiet and away from any official channels."

My gaze flicks to her again. I should feel relieved to see a familiar face in all of this, but I don't. I wish it were my dad getting me out of this.

"The woman you saved that night will never forget what she went through. Remember that."

"I know." My skin breaks out in goosebumps when I think about the way that woman screamed and ran right at me, pleading for anything that resembled help. I should have never been there in the first place. I never wanted to be a hero. I wanted to feel close to my dad. I wanted to be picked.

But she's making me curious. "What's your gut saying that doesn't feel right?"

"That it's been more than seventy-two hours now and nothing has happened. Someone had brains enough to get the U.S. Marshall Service involved because something isn't right." When she glances at me, I'm studying her profile and trying to read between the lines of what she's not saying. She shakes her head, like she's shaking off what she really wants to tell me. "With the type of evidence they found, you and his victim shouldn't have to be relocated." She pauses for a moment, swallowing audibly. "They couldn't get him to give a name and they can't find him in the system."

The hairs on my neck stand at the thought of him. I can still feel the way my lungs burned from running with the weight of another person draped over me.

"No name. Only partial fingerprints that haven't connected him with anyone in any system. There's no credit history or money trail. No rap-sheet. But the consistency in his victims' wounds are—" She cuts herself off. "Until I know that your risk is limited, I'll make sure you're out of sight. I owe at least that to your father."

She lights her clove cigarette, and I pull out my bag of sour gummy bears.

I don't know the details of the relationship she had with my dad, but he was a respected federal agent, and I have a feeling he left a lot of people owing him favors. That part, out of all of this, isn't what surprises me. It's the fact that she doesn't want a paper trail about where I'm going. Hell, I don't even know where we're headed.

Heaviness settles on my chest like I can't take a deep breath. I want to scream at her and tell her that all of this isn't okay. I feel like I'm being punished for doing the right thing, which isn't fair. And as much as I'm relieved to not be dealing with the mess I left, I don't want to disappear.

Memories would be harder to remember when I wasn't there to see the things that brought them back—blankets on the grass in Bryant Park, wandering around The High Line, eating our way through Chinatown. I didn't even get a chance to bring things with me.

"The color suits you," she says, knocking me from my thoughts.

Pulling the visor down, I pop the mirror open. I look…different. Still me, but older in a way. Less like a woman trying to look like other people, to fit into a mold or keep a man's attention. I look like someone who's confident in her own skin. I like it—my hair an orange-red tint instead of the platinum blonde I've maintained for most of my adulthood.

I'm someone new all over again and I don't recognize her yet. But I will. Eventually. If I'm being honest, I hadn't recognized the person I became. It's felt that way for a long time, maybe even before I lost my dad.

"You can keep your first name." She tucks her clove between her lips and leans over me, plucking a cloth zippered pouch from the glove compartment. "There's a new social, license, and passport…"

Thinking about my name, I tune out the rest. My dad called me Laney, but I hadn't gone by the nickname in years. There's only one person alive who knows me by that name, and I never want to see him again.

I close my eyes and try to breathe through the disgust I feel when I think about what I had been doing with Phillip. I spent so much time trying to smudge out Laney from Coney Island and fit in as Eleanor Shaw from Manhattan. I'm neither of those people anymore—Coney Island Laney nor Manhattan Eleanor. The high-profile events, society weddings, and the wealthy clientele I had catered to allowed me to build a lifestyle, but it didn't feel like a life. It felt like name-dropping whenever possible, materialistic, and after a while, it was easy to mistake hard work for happiness.

Feeling a sense of relief, I flip through the laminated pieces of paper. I still haven't processed everything, and that's going to hit me like a freight train when it all sinks in. I'm smart enough to know it's why my emotions are all over the place—lack of sleep and an intensely traumatic event will do that to a person. But as I watch the dark highway blur by, it's erasing my piss-poor decisions and priming me for what's coming. If Laney Young from Colorado had to be a lie, then I'd lean into it.

It took me until West Virginia to finally doze off. It feels like a span of only about five minutes between my eyes closing and the sound of arguing to nudge them open again. I rub away the blur from my eyes as I focus on the dashboard clock. Five minutes was more like six hours. The car is warm, borderline sticky, like the AC has been off for more than a little while. Where's Agent Harper?

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I look out my window at where we've parked. No mountains or oceans. From what I can tell, everything looks flat. I've only ever lived near water and in a city. But here, there's no cityscape nor tucked-away parks. No skyscrapers nor light pollution of any kind, only the massive farmhouse ahead of me.

When I open the truck door, the humidity hits my skin like I've just walked into a screen door. A layer of sweat is already forming under anything that's clothed, especially right under the band of my sports bra and along the back of my neck.

The East Coast can be brutal in August, but it's only the first week of June, and that twelve-hour drive felt like it fast-forwarded me right into the dead heat of summer.

I stretch my arms over my head, lifting my hair as I do to air out the trapped warmth. Inhaling deeply, I try to calm my anxious thoughts about where I am or how annoying it is being this hot in the middle of the night. And then it hits me: the smell. It's like a motionless breeze just kicked in as the scent from a bakery permeates the air. Like yeast from baking bread, it carries a hint of chocolate with a tangy sweetness. It's not the savoriness of salted air or the pungent odor of a low-tide marsh. It's far better. Maybe I won't miss the ocean, after all. This smelled delicious and inviting.

Anything that smelled this good now must be beautiful in the daytime. "Damn," I say to myself as I look at what stands before me. The opulence seems like something you'd see along the Gold Coast or the shores of East Hampton. The manicured lawn and landscape are uplit, as if each shrub and tree are meant to be honored and displayed. Black-framed windows contrast the white siding, and a black metal roof has that modern farmhouse style. It's the kind of house that touts simplicity, but I know how expensive "simple" can really be. Farmhouse, in this case, was a design choice and not a literal house on a farm. Without even meeting its owners, I know farmers aren't living here.

There's barely a chirp from crickets or a hum of the wind that would rustle the trees. It's quiet and calm. That late-night or early-morning peacefulness that can be easily mistaken for safety. Will I be safe here? There isn't a single streetlight or neighbor"s porch lit. There's no dusky rose-colored hue along the horizon, polluting the edges of the landscape into the dark sky. Everything is black and speckled with stars of various sizes.

A man's deep voice raises and has my head whipping toward where it came. The tone of it has me moving around the parked truck. "Bea, you're only hearing what you want to hear. I said no. Why are you at my front door and not Grant's?"

It's not rocket science to know this argument is very likely about me. She said she was doing this her way, but I thought she would have phoned ahead to make sure wherever I was going, I'd be welcome.

"You know why. And Ace, I'm not asking here," Agent Harper"s voice rasps.

At the foot of the stairs, I stop in my tracks. Who is he?

"So you're threatening me?" the man says, just as he notices me. He does a double take. His dark hair with streaks of silver is combed back and cut short. But it's not the matching scruff along his cheeks and chin or the way he holds himself that has my attention. It's the fact that it's the middle of the night, and he's wearing suit pants and a white collared shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. Definitely not a farmer. He rests his hands on his narrow hips, looks up at the ceiling on the porch, and puffs out his cheeks, blowing out a breath. When his head tilts back down, eyes shifting to mine, he says, "Jesus, Bea. She looks like a fucking kid."

Maybe to him. But I've seen plenty of life at twenty-nine.

Bea turns to me and pulls out her silver case of cloves with a smile. When she lights it and takes a drag, plumes of smoke trail from her mouth and behind her with the slow, warm breeze. "She stopped a monster a few nights ago, Ace. She's not a kid, I can promise you that."

It's the first time I feel good about what I've done. It's the first time in two days that I don't feel like I'm drowning in uncertainty.

His mouth tips up into a sympathetic smile that almost looks like an apology. It reminds me of how my dad would smile when he knew I was going to tell him some not-so-great news.

He side-eyes Agent Harper. "You need to quit that shit, Bea."

"Shut up, Ace," she barks back. "Are we good here?"

"Del know you're here?"

She gives him a quick tic of a "no."

Ace takes a deep breath and holds it. "How long?"

Harper walks down the steps. "That'll be up to her eventually. But for now, it's until I can guarantee she's out of harm"s way."

Keeping his eyes trained on me, he asks, "We in any danger by having her here? You know we've had enough bad things happen to last a lifetime. And Lincoln's got kids?—"

She cuts him off, "I need her to be somewhere I trust, and away from people I don't."

I don't miss the fact that she doesn't answer his question about being in danger.

He smirks at her. "So I fall into that category now? In that circle of trust?"

"It's really fucking small, Ace. You know that." With a begrudging tone, she says, "Plus, this means I'll owe you. You know how much I love that kind of currency."

"You really think Fiasco is a good idea to hide someone?"

"What fiasco?" I interrupt. She better not be dropping me into something worse than what I just came from, if that's even possible.

"It's not unheard of for a woman to be at your house late at night." She raises her brow, the insinuation lingering as she pats his arm. "Do what you can. I know how rumors work here, so keep her away from anything that looks like the truth."

"I assume I don't get to know what the truth is, then?"

Harper meets my eye. "It's whatever she tells you." She winks at me.

He looks me up and down like he's sizing up what to do with me. I shift my weight and square my shoulders, wordlessly telling him that I'm not intimidated. With another smirk, he shakes his head, extending his right hand. "Atticus Foxx. You can call me Ace."

It takes me a few seconds to remember the lie. "Laney. Young. Laney Young," I stammer out as I take his hand.

His eyebrow quirks at the delivery.

Yeah, I'll need to work on that.I need to get better at saying a name that's not quite mine. The problem is, I'm not a liar. Of all the things I've been—an opportunist, a hopeful romantic, a cheat—I've never been a liar. Until now.

"Alright then, Laney Young. Welcome to Fiasco, Kentucky."