Chapter 76

Alison feels a strange combination of fear and hope. She sits in the back seat of Poppy McGee’s SUV next to Ryan, who is lost in thought, perhaps fear and hope of his own. Her father is about to meet with the Feds. One of two things will happen: It will be the real deal or a trap. In either case, they’ll be in hiding again.

“Everything okay?” Ryan says.

“Dandy.”

He smiles at that.

Dodge has such a wonderful smile. She’s experienced a roller coaster of emotions seeing him again. The nostalgia of their youth. The man he’s become. Her betrayals. Not only keeping her real identity from him for all those years. There’s more. She’d had periods of doubt about their relationship, including what could best be described as a dalliance with Poppy’s older brother. And in the years since, she’s become a different person. If Alison was the good version of Taylor, Sophia is the melancholy version of both. She has a deep sadness—loneliness—baked into her bones now.

She thinks a lot about that night at Lovers’ Lane. Not the abduction, which she’s tried to bury. But of Dodge shivering in that car, the anticipation that they would finally… She fights the memory. You can’t go home again isn’t just a literary cliché.

The car pulls into a lot in front of a structure the size of an airplane hangar. A sign over the entrance reads C. W. PARKER CAROUSEL MUSEUM.

Her father, in the front passenger seat, looks at Poppy. She returns the look with a shrug that says, Best I could do on short notice.

He climbs out of the vehicle, opens Alison’s door. She steps out and they stand in the parking lot, facing each other. He’s giving her that look he does sometimes, that weird admiring fatherly gaze.

Right as she says, “Please be careful,” Michael says, “I’ll be careful,” their words overlapping.

His response nearly levels her: “Copycat rat.”

He then hugs her tight. When he releases his hold, she notices Ryan has gotten out of the SUV as well.

“I’ll call when I’m sure it’s safe,” her father says to them both.

She holds back the tears. She needs her father to be sharp in case there’s trouble, not distracted worrying about her.

Ryan looks at her father, sticks out his hand for a shake. “In case WITSEC whisks you both off and I don’t see you again,” Ryan says, “I wish you good luck.”

Alison—she’s still Alison when Ryan is near—feels more sorrow in her chest. Ryan won’t be joining them if they go into WITSEC. It’s a risk. But he’s never been the target of the O’Learys. Just collateral damage.

Her father shakes Ryan’s hand firmly, then pulls him into a hug. With that, her dad turns and heads inside the structure.

Back in the vehicle, Poppy McGee says, “We can wait at my house.”

“No, we should wait here. He may need us,” Alison says.

“Trust me, I agree with you. But your dad made me promise I’d get you away from here, take you somewhere safe.”

“Well, break your promise,” Alison says.

Poppy says, “We need to trust him.”

Her father and this deputy have already agreed on the plan, the die is cast.

“You hungry?” the deputy asks. “I can get us some takeout.”

Alison hasn’t thought about food, isn’t sure she can eat. Ryan shrugs. He’s a giant and probably needs fuel to keep going.

“You guys like burritos?”