Matthias didn’t look quite the same after he’d heard the sound from the window above. One of the girls’ bedroom window. Finally, he interrupted Sam with, “Alright, let’s take a walk.”

“Why?” Ethan said.

Matthias pointed up to the window.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Ethan said quietly. “You don’t need to worry about her so much. I trust her. I really, truly—”

“And her sister?” Matthias interrupted.

“Well . . . Well, who trusts her?”

“But that’s her bedroom up there,” Matthias said. “That’s her window.”

“I guess the pills wore off?”

“Of course it could be Kalani,” Sam said. “If we think rationally for a minute, it could very well be Kalani.”

“No,” Ethan said, blurting out the word and not even really knowing why. “It’s not Kalani, guys.”

“What’s not Kalani?” Matthias said.

“Come on,” Ethan said, “just trust me on this.”

They’d already started moving away from the house, slowly but without any further prompting. Instinctual and connected, like a slow-motion flock of birds over a lake. They walked around to the driveway side of the house, Ethan feeling a little astonished that no one mentioned anything about the cellar when they walked by it.

“He should be here by now,” Matthias said.

Jackson.

Ethan felt like he’d been waiting for Jackson since the beginning. Certainly since Washington.

“He wouldn’t say where he was,” Matthias said. “No doubt hot on the trail for Tucker.”

“Think he found him?” Ethan asked.

“We would have heard about that.”

“God,” Sam said, “Why can’t the guy just pop up somewhere?” He stopped at the tail end of Kalani’s car. He was staring at the closed trunk lid, his gaze steady enough to pierce through the metal.

“Can you read the car’s mind, too?” Matthias said.

“What’s up, Sam?” Ethan asked.

Matthias shushed him. “Quiet, he’s accessing the trunk’s subconscious.”

“Do either of you know where they keep the key for this?” Sam said, still looking at the back of the car.

Matthias said, “Why don’t you just check?”

“Check where?”

“The fucking door handle,” He moved around and forward to the driver’s side door.

Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “You really think he’s in here?”

Sam kept quiet while Matthias lifted the door handle, the door popping open with a soft thunk. The sound was exhilarating, a little scary, as was the sight of the door swinging open all the way. Matthias leaned in, looking near the floor for the trunk-release latch.

“You think he’d be in the trunk?” Ethan said. “Without us hearing anything?”

Sam snorted. “You think he’d be quiet?”

“Get your head right, Ethan.” Matthias was bent over, running his hand along inside somewhere.

“Fine,” Ethan said, “So he’s in there, not making a sound for reason I won’t mention, and they’d just take him into town like that? To the car shop? Lying in the back like that?”

The soft sound of car tires over crushed stone brought Ethan’s attention away from whatever Matthias had been doing inside the car.

“Guys . . .” Sam’s voice was unusually nervous.

Ethan heard the low metal popping sound of the trunk release. The lid had raised several inches up, ready to be opened.

“Hold it,” Matthias said, stepping back out of the car.

“Hold what?” Ethan and Sam said in unison.

“Just hold it. Who is that?”

The sound grew louder.

“That’s us, right?” Sam said. “That’s our driveway?”

“That’s someone driving up our driveway,” Matthias said, drawing his gun and holding it low.

Ethan had already drawn his while he watched two bluish white beams of light moving through the trees. “That’s definitely us,” he said. “Should we . . . ?”

“Yes, we should,” Matthias said, already on the move. He met Sam behind the car, Ethan watching both of them as he slowly walked backward toward the house, his focus moving back to where the forest glowed brighter. The car tires, and the car’s purring, louder. Ethan felt a little better when he crouched behind a large generator.

He waited there, watching the full-fledged DARC Ops men waiting behind the car.

“Everyone just take it easy,” Matthias said over the growing noise. “Really think this through before you go hog wild with your trigger fingers.” His voice had begun to get clipped by the approach of the car now. One of the last words Ethan could hear from him was the word, “Jackson.”

It must have been Jackson.

He was early. Much earlier than they’d expected. But perhaps Ethan hadn’t known Jackson well enough to learn about those types of expectations. Assumptions about timing and limited possibilities.

“Yeah,” Matthias shouted. “It looks like him.”

It did?

An idea crossed Ethan’s mind: Why hadn’t Jackson called to update them? He thought the DARC leader was usually pretty good at keeping everyone in the loop.

And then Ethan thought about how long they’d left Lea home alone. Drugged-out Lea stumbling toward the phone, answering the call and painting a pretty bleak picture for Jackson back in Washington.