Page 24 of Silent Watch
Harper's hand tightened on the album.Bennett.
Harper stood, the album clutched against her chest.Something was burning behind her ribs—grief, maybe, or rage, or the terrible recognition of a pattern she was now part of.Isak had died for this.Margaret Crane had died for this.Nova Boone, Daniel Bennett, and God knew how many others, all of them silenced because they'd seen too much, asked too much, known too much.
And now Geri had handed her the evidence of thirty years of murder, and Harper was going to walk out the front door carrying it.
"Will you be safe?"she asked.
"I've been safe for thirty years by being invisible."Geri walked her to the door, her movements stiff."Maybe I'll get another thirty.Or maybe this is the thing that finally catches up with me."
"Geri—"
"Don't."The older woman's voice was firm."Don't make me promises you can't keep.Just take that album and do something with it.Make it matter."
She opened the door.The night air rushed in, warm and heavy.
"Be careful," Geri said."Douglas finds out everything.That's what makes him dangerous."
Harper stepped onto the porch.Behind her, the door closed, and the deadbolt clicked into place.
She was halfwayto her car when she realized she was being followed.
Not a sound.Not a shadow.Just a feeling—the primitive awareness of eyes on her back, the animal instinct that had kept her alive for fourteen months of running.
She kept walking.Same pace.Same direction.The album pressed against her chest like a shield.
The parking lot was just ahead, her rental car alone under a flickering streetlight.She was reaching for her keys when she saw it.
A black SUV.Parked where it hadn't been before, tucked into the shadow at the far end of the lot.Engine running.
Harper's hand found the panic button in her pocket.Three seconds to activate.Backup in five minutes.But five minutes was a lifetime when someone wanted you dead.
She didn't go to her car.Instead, she cut left, toward the inlet, toward the walking path that curved along the water.If they were watching her car, she wouldn't give them an easy target.
Behind her, tires crunched on gravel.
Harper walked faster.The path was dark, barely visible in the thin moonlight.Trees pressed close on either side, Spanish moss hanging like curtains.Her breath came quick and shallow.The album's weight made her arms ache.
Headlights swept across the inlet road, parallel to the path.Moving slowly.Hunting.
She broke into a run.
Branches caught at her clothes, her hair.The path curved, and she followed it blind, trusting her feet to find the ground.Her lungs burned.Her heart slammed against her ribs.The album slipped in her sweating hands, and she clutched it tighter, willing herself not to drop it, not to lose thirty years of evidence in the dark.
The SUV's engine grew louder.They'd found the access road.They were trying to cut her off.
Harper veered into the trees, crashing through underbrush, no longer caring about noise.Palmetto fronds slashed at her legs.A root caught her foot, and she stumbled, nearly went down, caught herself on a tree trunk, and kept moving.
The main road had to be close.Caleb was out there somewhere, watching, waiting.
She burst through a line of bushes and found herself on pavement.The road stretched in both directions, empty.
Headlights appeared to her right.The SUV, rounding the curve.
Harper pressed the panic button.
And then, from the left, another car.Smaller.Moving fast.
Caleb's rental screeched to a stop in front of her, the passenger door flying open before the wheels stopped turning.
