Page 288 of The Professor's Wife

Then he buried his face against my hair. I closed my eyes and held onto him, and it felt right. It felt like this was where I belonged.

“I have to go home first.”

“No, Daisy.”

“My bag is still there. Rowe’s pictures are there. His dragon. My money. Things I need.”

“We can get new things.”

“Not those. Not Rowe’s dragon.”

His jaw worked, and he looked toward the ocean as if he might find a better answer there.

“Daisy—”

“I am not leaving Rowe behind.”

That stopped him completely. He watched me, searching my face, the understanding of how much this meant to me dawning on him.

He gave a stiff nod. “Five minutes in the house.”

I nodded back. “Five minutes.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

I eased the front door open, the hinges groaning faintly, and slipped inside. The air was cooler than outside, heavy with the faint scent of detergent and air freshener. My pulse thudded in my ears. Tristan was out front, waiting in his camper, trusting me to be quick.

I had one goal in mind.

Take what remained of Rowe, collect the bag I had hidden, and get out.

The last of Rowe’s pictures. The ones that weren’t locked away from me. The only ones I could access before I fled from here forever.

Oliver had been gone since yesterday morning. After what Tristan had seen at the cabin, I had no idea where he was now.

It didn’t matter. Whatever Oliver had done, whatever trouble was closing in around him, it was no longer my concern.

He would come home and I’d be gone. He would detonate. His rage wouldn’t reach me, though.

The thought made me queasy regardless.

The hallway stretched ahead, dim and silent. I moved fast, feet whispering against the floorboards. Rowe’s photographs occupied every room. Frames lined the mantel and crowded the shelves. My hands shook as I reached for them. One frame, thenanother, the glass cool against my fingertips. His smile, his eyes, captured forever. I slid them into the satchel Tristan had let me take, the fabric sagging with their weight.

Rowe’s bedroom hit me like a blow. Oliver never cleared it out because he needed me anchored to this grief. He needed me fragile, predictable, contained. He knew that taking this room would destroy me in a way that slipped beyond his reach. So he left it untouched. It wasn’t for me, but for his control.

And now I saw it.

And now I was leaving.

The dragon stuffy lay on Rowe’s bed, limp and waiting. I picked it up, pressing it to my chest. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Memories of him hit me all at once. I could see him running around me right now, screaming up a storm, his excitement contagious and wonderful.

“I have to go,” I whispered to him, throat tightening.

I forced myself to move. I couldn’t stay here. Not now.

Back down the staircase I went with the final destination in mind. I hurried into the laundry room. The linen basket sat in the corner, half-buried under folded sheets. I dug through, heart racing, until my fingers closed around the pillowcase full of crumpled bills and birth control pills. I shoved the pillowcase deep into the bag.

That was when I felt it.