20. Rafe

Rafe

G ideon glares at me for a long time, but eventually, he gives up, and he walks away. Dane can't look at me, and I don't blame him. None of us can bear each other.

"It was the right thing to do," I say quietly over and over, trying to convince myself. My harsh words to the two of them while she was packing her belongings still weigh heavily on me.

"Keep telling yourself that." Dane stands up and walks to the kitchen. "Shit."

I whirl around and go to the kitchen counter, leaning over to see a bucket, bleach, and a rag.

It makes me feel worse. She cleaned up and protected us when she could have run, and we just let her walk out of here. We might not see her again.

"It's safer," I whisper, arguing with myself. "She will be safer at home."

Dane looks at me and finally stomps around and grips my shoulders. "I'm mad at her, Rafe. I'm so mad at her. But she's right. And so are you. It's time to run."

I blink and look at him. "I didn't kill her, did I? By letting her go?"

"We. We, Rafe." He shakes his head. "No, Rafael. She will be safer there. He doesn't want her dead, he wants her to suffer, to regret leaving him, but not to die. But he will come after us, so go and get your stuff together. We're leaving. "

I nod and jog to my room. I pack in a blur, ensuring I've got mostly dark clothes, adding a first aid kit, sewing kit, and my toiletries. When I think I'm done, I look at my belongings, at this room, and take just one more thing. A photo of all of us. It was taken a few days ago. I stare at it and then fold it and slip it into my pocket.

"We cannot travel because we have no identification. Nor can we rent a car or a house. We can't even get a library card," Gideon shouts, he stomps his way to the front of the house, and I hear something break.

I pick up my bag and look at my room. I hate to leave it, but it's just a room. Gideon snarls and stalks around and around.

I walk to the dishwasher and kneel. It takes me a minute to get the cover off the base of it, but I reach in and pull out a plastic bag. Gideon leans over me and watches intently.

I slap the bag in his hand and stand up. "We had to learn new things when we were on our own. We got smart and prepared."

Gideon upends the bag onto the counter and stares at it. "How much?"

"Five thousand."

He lets out a whistle. "And the key?"

"To a car in long-term parking. The other set of keys is for a house further out of town, it's rented to a woman called Myra Jones."

Gideon blinks at me three times. "What did you think you were coming to find?"

I shove my hand onto his chest and push him back, staring into his eyes and letting him see the people we grew into. "We thought we were hunting a serial killer."

Gideon takes an unsteady breath and lets his chin sink to his chest. "I'm sorry. I know that you two gave up everything to find answers, and, to me, that means everything. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be taking it out on you both. Her father has the means to protect her. She made the right call. He just walked in here, no fear. I really want to kill this prick."

I take my hand off his chest and give him a bleak look. "I don't want to lose either of you again, and I don't want her to be hurt."

"We won't. We'll make sure we all survive," Gideon says confidently.

"All right," Dane says. "I've pulled out three of the kits. We've got twenty thousand and a credit card. I checked for bugs earlier and set a jammer to kill any signals to anything, so there's no fucking way that prick can pick up anything, but I want to be safe and get out of here anyway."

"Are we taking option A?" I ask him.

Dane glowers. "No. I think we'd be better in C."

I grimace but go to the bookshelf and pull out another kit we set up. In this one, there are three sets of IDs that just need photos stuck in. I cross over to my phone and take a photo of each of us and print it quickly. I take my time cutting them out and gluing them onto the passports.

"Here you go," I say, handing out the new driver's licenses and passports. They will do in a pinch, and let's hope no one looks too close.

"Anything else we need?"

Dane takes a look at the fridge and shakes his head. He looks at the cookies, and his jaw tightens. He reaches out and slams his arm into them. The plate shatters on the floor, and cookies rain down. "Let's go."

Gideon and I don't react as Dane stomps past us.

He leads the way, taking us out the back of the warehouse and leading us across the empty paddock behind our home. We move quietly through the city before Dane pulls out three phones and hands us one each .

"I've pre-programed the phones," Dane says. Two minutes later, a taxi rolls up. We get in and travel ten minutes before it pulls over and lets us out. The house is three blocks east in a poor neighbourhood. We won't be living in luxury anymore, but that's okay.

I walk quickly, leading us through an increasingly dreary, weatherboard home neighbourhood. We get to our street and steal inside the house we rented a year ago. Once Dane's satisfied we haven't been followed, he relaxes. Gideon paces to the windows and checks outside.

"We chose this place because of the ability for us to escape," I explain. "It's quiet, but the neighbours are nosy, so they might see something we miss. I've been here once a week seeding the story about being Myra's long-lost nephews."

Gideon looks back at me. "I'm really impressed."

I shrug. "He's smart. We knew what we were coming into."

Dane is staring at the wall, frowning. "I went somewhere last night. I saw a man about the ghosts. He thinks the ghosts will be too weak to come back into a body a third time. But he agrees that there must be a connection between the bodies. Something that allows the souls to be able to bridge the distance."

"Intent. Mason and I wanted to save her."

Dane shakes his head. "I think it's much more than that."

I shrug and look at Gideon. He looks as perplexed as I am. Dane stands up and walks away. He studies the kitchen, and his shoulders droop before he turns and walks to a bedroom.

We had movers deliver three beds and enough of what we need, but everything's still in boxes. I don't want to go through it yet; the idea makes this too real, too permanent.

I perch near the window, watching the neighbours' house. "How did he get to us?"

"It had to be the pizza. "

"How did he know we ordered pizza? Get there, poison it, and ensure the delivery kid said nothing?" I growl, I put my head in my hands and groan. "I just want to know she's okay."

"So, call her."

"No. We can't call her. Gideon, come on, we have to be smart to protect her. If something happens to us, she's at his mercy," I say succinctly.

Gideon frowns and sits beside me. "I'm not used to being so far from her. It feels wrong. Everything is screaming at me to go and find her, protect her."

"Me, too."

"I can't help but feel like we abandoned her."

"Gideon, we didn't."

"I know that, I just…feelings don't listen to logic."

I nod. I know what he means.

"All right, if we're going to sit and sulk, let's get our heads together and work out a plan."

Dane comes out of his room and sits on the floor. Gideon takes my spot while I grab some paper and a pen out of the drawer closest to me.

"Who do we think Louis is?" I ask. The room goes still.

"It could be anyone," Gideon says. "It could be a gardener, the security, it could be Eddie, it could be Sparrow. Hell, it might even be Wayland. It literally could be anyone, even a woman."

"I highly doubt it's a woman. The physical ability to carry bodies around isn't something I can see Mrs Pritchard from the knitting club doing," Dane snaps.

"What about Jacob?"

"You think he's faking that grief?" Dane asks. "Ballsy."

"He's got a strong connection to Louis. He's the only person with a strong connection to Louis. "

Gideon sighs. "I'd hate to think that it's him, but you're right, that is a deep connection that we can't ignore."

"River?" Dane says.

I open my mouth to deny it, but I can't. "River was at the shooting. He'd been by and seen our place. He could have poisoned our food. River could have met Louis and had a connection with him that we don't know about."

Gideon leans back, letting out a gust of air. "I hate this."

"Us, too," I confirm.

I get a message alert of my phone and open it. I read quickly and close my eyes, sending a prayer for the poor man.

"Astaire's body has been found. He was posed in the old playground where those children died. Same M.O. as the Black Dahlia Killer. They are speculating that Titan was a decoy and the killer never died."

Dane puts his face in his hands. "Fuck! We have to call her."

"No!" I bark out. "No, we cannot. Descario and Wayland will have questioned her by now and want to know what's going on. They'll have bugged the phones. Sparrow will monitor her and anything around her. She's safe. She has so many people watching her."

Gideon slams his head back into the wall. "Fuck!"

Dane looks down at his hands.

"All right, here's what I know. The food in our house was poisoned, which means he was on our property more than once. So, we need to see if we can get surveillance from our old neighbours."

"He'll have taken it," Dane says with exasperation. "He always does. He's too smart."

"Maybe he missed one," I snap back. "We can't figure out who he is until we know more. I'm going to see Jacob. "

"I'm going to go back and talk to the ghost man," Dane says quietly.

We both look at Gideon.

"I guess I'll go see if I can get the security footage."

"All right, so we meet back here at five. If we aren't here by six, something is wrong. There's a stash buried five steps into the daisy plants. Whoever needs it takes it. If the house is compromised, we meet at the lookout every night at dusk."

We all agree. I take a long look at them and cross my fingers, hoping we'll be okay.

Gideon and Dane leave the house first. I leave twenty minutes later, calling a taxi rather than walking.

The drive takes me out to Jacob's, but when I get there, the front door is open. With a sinking feeling, I edge my way in and stop. The house has been torn apart. No piece of furniture is intact. Even the walls have scratches gouged into them.

Whoever did this was furious, and somehow, I can see it being Jacob. I move through the house, and when I find the torn up photo of Martha on the floor; I know.

Fuck, poor Jacob. May God save his soul.

I pull out my phone, then change my mind. I put it back in my pocket and walk out of the house, leaving everything alone without touching it.

My clothes are drenched in sweat, my hands are shaking, and it's all I can do to keep walking. I get three streets down when I can't suppress the urge to vomit. I hurl until my stomach is empty. My body trembles as the rain soaks me. I wish, I wish I could take back the words I said because if I'm wrong, If I'm wrong, and I don't think I am, then Jacob Keylore, the ex-Pastor of Hurricane, is going to die soon.

If I'm right, then this is an elaborate ruse, and I don't know what will happen. Either way, a few more days, and we will have the answer, and my guess is pastor Keylore isn't coming back to Hurricane.

And he's not our suspect.