Chapter 5

Sofia

I groan and burrow deeper into my blankets, relishing the sensation of such a ridiculous thread count. I’ve never felt so pampered in my life. After so many days on the road, all the stress, Agent Callahan breathing down my neck, I hadn’t had the chance to luxuriate in a hot shower and a long, deep sleep. But I finally feel safe somewhere.

I close my eyes, and everything swirls into a delicious, inky black.

Approximately one second later, the alarm clock shrills, alerting me that it’s six o’clock, and I bolt upright. After a few minutes, all the details filter down again. Lucas Gray’s cabin. Charlie and Madison. Playing house. Right.

If I want to keep this life in the lap of luxury, I need to nan up.

I climb out of bed, my feet still sore as they strike the hardwood floor, and I shuffle into the same clothes I wore yesterday, which I cleaned and dried last night. I also completely drowned myself in some delicious ginger chicken soup. Oh, my god. Oh, my god, Lucas can cook.

I head downstairs and the itinerary is waiting for me, printed on a crisp sheet of paper, right in the center of the kitchen table.

6: Make lunches and prep clothes for kids.

6:30: Wake kids, get them all set up, and drive them to Fallaway Peak Elementary and Middle Schools. My keys are on the table by the front door. Take the black Jeep in the driveway.

8: Kids need to be at school by this time.

8:30-12: Take a break!

12: Pick up Madison, she’s getting a half day.

12-2: Entertain Madison, perform any outstanding chores—cleaning, laundry, and figure out dinner. We eat home-cooked around here. The fridge is fully stocked.

3: Pick up Charlie.

3-5: Prep and cook dinner.

6: Get Maddy a bath drawn and supervise from a distance.

After 6: Charlie needs to be doing his homework, and you need to clean up from dinner. We don’t tolerate dirty dishes in this house.

7: Maddy’s bedtime. She wants to hear stories. You can make one up or read from where I left off in Harry Potter.

7-10: Rest, light cleaning, whatever you want to do if everything has been done.

10: Charlie’s bedtime. And you’re officially off the clock until six tomorrow.

Just reading the itinerary makes me tired.

The house is dark and quiet, and I’m sure Lucas must have already left the house or be working in his office. Why else would he print out an itinerary and disappear, instead of guiding me through anything?

Oh well. It doesn’t matter. Sink or swim, Sofia. Do what the real Maggie would do and make it work. You have to.

Pearly, chill gray sunlight is only just beginning to filter through the windows of the cabin as I creep into Madison and Charlie’s rooms, fishing out nice, appropriate school clothes. I head back downstairs and make simple lunches: carrot sticks, peanut butter and jelly, little bags of pretzels. The schedule is packed tight to the gills, and I’m barely finished when the clock chimes seven and it’s time to wake the kids up. But I feel good. I feel accomplished.

I can do this.

Maybe I can keep this job.

I gently nudge Charlie awake. His baleful blue gaze turns to me with pure hatred and he says, “Oh. It’s you.”

“Hey, Charlie,” I whisper. “It’s time for school, buddy.”

“Joy,” he grumbles, monotonous. “Can you get out of here while I get dressed?”

I tell him I already picked out his clothes and gesture to where they’re folded at the foot of the bed. He scoffs and wrinkles his nose at me.

“Do you want me to ever have friends?” he asks, seeming genuinely concerned.

“Yes?”

“Please, just get out. I’m not five. I can pick my own clothes.”

I purse my lips and obey his wishes, but when I come back in a few minutes, he’s asleep in bed again. I groan and shake him awake.

“Uuuugh!” he cries without opening his eyes.

“Uuuugh to you, too,” I say. “Get up, Charlie.”

“All right! Fine!”

The five-year-old is easier to handle. She eats her breakfast dutifully. Charlie won’t touch it. She puts on the dress and tights I laid out. She gets in the car and buckles her damn self in. I drop her off at the elementary school, and now, running late by a few minutes, I get Charlie to the middle school down the street.

But when we park, he won’t get out of the car. He stares out the window like those front doors lead to a prison, to the gallows.

“Please get out, Charlie,” I beg him. “Look, man. I really need this job. I want to impress your dad. And if he gets a call because you’re late on my first day, if I can’t even get you out of the car, what am I going to do?”

His eyes grimly flash to mine in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t look like he cares what the fuck happens to me.

“Please,” I add.

“I don’t want to. I feel sick. I want to go home.”

“You feel sick right now?”

“Yeah.”

He looks fine. “Charlie, please.”

“I told you, I’m sick. I need to go back home, and if you don’t take me—”

“I’ll give you twenty bucks,” I plead. “Right now, to get out of the car and go through those doors.”

Charlie grimaces, nods, and stretches out an open palm. With molars gritted together, I pass him one of the twenties in my stack, and he climbs out of the Jeep at 7:10. Not bad. Not bad for a first day.

Actually, it’s only been the first hour of my first day. Charlie said it and I have to agree: Uuuugh.

Parked and sitting in this black Jeep outside of Fallaway Peak Middle School, I get my first chance to count the stack of cash Lucas left for me this morning.

My eyes bulge wider and wider as I shuffle through bill after bill after bill, counting upward in continuing disbelief.

Twenty-five twenties. Holy shit. Five hundred dollars and a place to stay for the week. Free food. Lucas Gray is truly an angel. Knowing that I have a few free hours in my itinerary now, I get directions to Fallaway Peaks Center, a crummy strip mall, and I buy myself fresh clothes.

I change into them, selecting warm, wool-lined white leggings, a floral blouse, and a long pink duster. I gather my unruly blond curls up into a white scarf embossed with pink roses, securing it into a Rosie the Riveter style knot. I can’t have Lucas thinking I only have one pair of jeans and one shirt, though most of them are still in the backseat of my impounded Honda.

It’s after nine when I return to the cabin off the highway, the one in the forest-hemmed neighborhood of beautiful cottages. I enter the electronic alarm code and let myself into the house, where I have less than an hour to familiarize myself with my new home, for the next two days, anyway. Then it’s back to work.

I have to pick up Maddy at noon, and from then on, it’s nonstop activity.

I don’t get another second alone until after Madison is in bed, and I’m able to start the dishes, which wait for me, stacked in the sink, still caked in fish grease from the salmon and rice that I made. My fingers are slick with juice from cutting and bagging the remaining salmon, and I turn on the miniature television next to the sink with my elbow, looking for something to pass the time.

It’s already set on local news, and I hesitate but let it play.

“Yesterday evening, law enforcement found an abandoned vehicle on the side of Route 16. This vehicle appears to belong to a woman, Sofia Marshall, who is wanted for insurance fraud. If you have information about her whereabouts, please contact your local police.”

My entire body goes cold. I freeze and stand there, fishy hands still poised over the sink.

The front door closes in the foyer, and I snap out of my daze. I scurry to switch off the television with my elbow. I hadn’t even realized I was rooted to the spot in absolute fear.

Lucas fills the kitchen doorway as he enters the room, dressed in tight blue jeans and a black T-shirt that hugs his biceps and abdominals. His hair is rumpled sideways, like it’s windy outside, and his dark eyes are similarly invigorated, but maybe that’s because he’s looking at me. I can’t help but notice how his gaze slides along my curves, thickened by the wool-lined leggings and also hidden by the filmy pink duster.

I smile with nervousness, feeling a little candle ignite in my chest. He likes me.

Well, he doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m Maggie. But he also thinks I’m pretty.

“Hey, there,” he greets me, coming to stand alongside me. He smells like the forest outside, like rain and pine and soil. “You survived your first day and you didn’t quit.”

“Well, you had the foresight to pay me first,” I joke. “But yeah, everything went fine.” My eyes pan down to the sink, overflowing with dishes. “Last thing to do are the dishes,” I add brightly. “Can you grab me some dish soap? I don’t want to get my slimy hands all over the bottle. Just squirt a little in my hand—” My cheeks flower with blush. I’m so immature and scramble to pretend like I didn’t just make a that’s-what-she-said. “And I can get on gloves and finish.”

“Of course.” Lucas reaches over my head for the soap, incidentally crowding himself against my back as he does so. He grasps the soap, which I’m watching with great focus to pretend like I’m not focusing on his groin pillowed against my ass. But who are we kidding? His body heat radiates into me, and his woodsy scent swims all around me. He feels it, too, because something tell-tale twitches against my butt cheek as he steps away.

“Thanks,” I breathe. He squirts some soap into my hands and I lather and rinse.

“No problem.”

I don’t dare turn and glance at him, but he’s the one who breaks the silence. I flick the water off my hands and slip on the yellow rubber gloves draped over the faucet, and he says, “Wait.”