EXCERPT #1
SUMMARY: Jules’s original introduction. Having accepted that gaining custody of her siblings will be expensive—if not impossible—Jules makes a decision.
Juliet Young knew the exact moment she decided to commit a felony. It was when her sixteen-year-old, six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound jock of a brother cried.
“Oh, Sam…”
“J-J-Juju…” His stutter hadn’t been this bad since he was thirteen. It killed her that they were talking on the phone and she couldn’t hug him—not that he’d probably want to be hugged. “Puh-puh…” His inhale shook with tears. “Please!”
Resting her forehead on her kitchen table, she felt all the despair and hopelessness and frustration that had swamped her after talking with her lawyer consolidate into a hard ball of resolve. She sat up straight. “New plan, Sam-I-Am.”
“Wh-wh-wh…” When he couldn’t manage the word, he just went quiet, waiting for her to tell him.
Now that she’d decided to do it, to break her life-long law-abiding streak, Jules felt strong again. No wonder people became criminals. “The lawyer said that, with the FBI investigation and without my CPA license, it’s unlikely I’ll get custody. The money’s almost gone, and I’ll need a really good, really expensive attorney to even have a chance at winning y’all.”
His intake of breath was audible. “I-I-I-I c-c-can’t stand i-it anym-more, Ju.”
“I know. That’s why we’re going with plan…heck, I don’t even know what letter we’re on anymore. Probably triple-Y or something.”
His laugh was just a short huff of sound, but it still made Jules smile.
“I’m calling the mob.”
EXCERPT #2
SUMMARY: After meeting with Mr. Espina, Jules rushes to the park where she meets disappearance expert Dennis Lee—her only hope of getting her siblings away from their abusive stepmother.
She was only five minutes late when she leaned against the stegosaurus, gasping for air. If she’d known that going on the run was going to be so literal, she would’ve started jogging a while ago. More comfortable shoes wouldn’t have hurt, either. Jules scowled down at her pumps. “Practical, my sweaty butt.”
Once she was able to concentrate on something other than sucking in precious oxygen, she scanned the crowd for Dennis. The dinosaurs were scattered through the playground equipment, and the place was packed with the eight-and-under crowd. Once she’d dismissed the too-young-to-forge and the old-enough-to-forge-but-appeared-to-be-female individuals, she was left with two possibilities: a blond thirtysomething leaning against a tree, messing with his cell phone, and a slender, dark-haired man sitting on a bench, holding a baby in his lap.
Picking the more likely of the two, she started to make her way toward the guy with the cell phone, but the other man waved at her with the hand not securing the baby. Startled, she stopped and gave him an “Are you sure?” look, to which he responded with a firm nod. Either Dennis was the one with the baby, or this man was a client she didn’t recognize. He didn’t look familiar, and Jules was fairly sure she would’ve remembered his striking, vaguely Asian features and almost-colorless blue eyes.
“Dennis?” she asked when she got close enough to keep her voice low.
In response, he buckled the baby into a stroller that butted up against the side of the bench. “Ready to walk?”
Unsure of whether the question had been directed at her or the baby, Jules answered, “Sure.” Her feet would’ve preferred some bench time, but the area was crowded with too many would-be eavesdroppers. She mentally told her feet to suck it up and quit whining.
The baby secured, Dennis pushed the stroller briskly along the asphalt path. “Beautiful day.”
The back of Jules’s blouse was soaking wet from perspiration. If her shirt hadn’t been white, she would’ve left her stifling suit jacket in the car, but she figured that flashing her new-identity-maker would be inappropriate—or at least misleading. “Uh…sure.”
They reached the turn where the path began to circle a swampy pond. “So, which Mr. Espina gave you my number—Luis or Mateo?”
“Um…Mateo.” She was happy to let him lead the conversation. Now that she was here, Jules wasn’t sure how to go about asking for illegal goods and services.
The baby tossed a plastic ring onto the path. Without losing a step, Dennis scooped up the discarded toy and tucked it into the diaper bag lodged in the back of the stroller. “How do you know my boss?”
Jules hesitated. Was this a test of her secret-keeping abilities? When Dennis just glanced at her, his expression mild, she mentally shrugged. There was no harm in his knowing. “I am—was—his brother’s accountant.”
His unexpected laugh made her jump. “I bet that was…challenging.”
That, she knew not to answer directly. Instead, she hummed noncommittally. “Can you help me?”
“Depends.”
An approaching jogger smiled into the stroller. “Beautiful baby,” she said as she passed, her voice obnoxiously not at all breathless. Jules scowled, thinking of her one-block, panting sprint from the parking lot to the dinosaurs, before pulling her focus back to the man next to her.
“Depends on what?”
“What it is that you need.”
Glancing around, Jules didn’t see anyone within earshot, but she still leaned toward Dennis and lowered her voice. “New birth certificates and social security numbers for me and my four siblings, and a place to live a long ways away from here.”
His eyebrows shot up as he stared at her. “Five of you?”
She nodded.
“That will be expensive.”
Jules had been afraid of that. “I have some money.” She could say that only thanks to the twenty thousand dollars Mr. Espina had handed to her like it’d been a dime. Every penny of her own had gone to her get-the-kids-away-from-the-witch fund, leaving her with an apartment only slightly bigger than a refrigerator box and minimal groceries. The lawyers had eaten all of her savings, and her clenching gut thought that Mr. Espina’s gift probably wasn’t enough for Dennis’s services. “How much?”
“Ten apiece.”
Feeling like he’d punched her in the midsection, she choked for breath. Her knees went wobbly, and she had to force them to stiffen enough to hold her. “Fifty…” She couldn’t even finish saying the amount. It was too staggering, too…heartbreaking.
Once the initial shock had passed and her lungs started working again, she searched her brain for a solution. Every problem had a fix. It wasn’t helpful to just despair that she didn’t have the money.
“Can I do payments?” She was proud that her voice was only a little wobbly.
His expression was unreadable, but Jules took slight comfort in the fact that he hadn’t immediately turned her down. She could figure out how she’d be able to make money while hiding after she solved the immediate problem.
“I don’t do payment plans,” he finally said, grinding a casual heel into her newly blossoming hope. “But we might be able to figure out a trade.”
Trade? Even though Dennis was wheeling his baby around the park and looked about as un-lustful as any man possibly could, her brain immediately went there.
“What kind of trade?” Her voice was flat and thick with suspicion. There were a lot of things she’d do for her siblings, but that was not one of them. If that was Dennis’s offer, she’d figure out another way to get what she needed to steal the kids.
“Not what you’re thinking.” Instead of sounding offended, amusement crept into his tone. “Not that you aren’t pretty and all”—his wave indicating her form was dismissive—“but this little one takes all of my extra energy. Right now, a hookup just sounds exhausting.”
“Okay.” She believed he was being sincere, but he still hadn’t named his price—his nonmonetary price, at least. “So what would I need to do?”
“Mr. Espina has me do this”—he tipped his head toward her in a gesture that Jules interpreted as the whole disappearance-assistance thing—“a lot. Sometimes, his clients need a temporary place to stay for a few weeks until I can arrange something more permanent. Once I set you up with a safe new home, I’d like to send the occasional traveler in your direction.”
Jules considered this. It was much more reasonable than what her overactive imagination had been conjuring—so reasonable, in fact, that it made her suspicion flare even higher. “We’d just have to let someone live with us for a few weeks?”
“Exactly.”
“No criminals or anyone dangerous?”
“No dangerous criminals.”
Not missing his careful wording, she narrowed her eyes at his impassive face. It was true that, if all went to plan, she’d be a felon herself shortly, so it wasn’t fair to judge others for their possibly justified crimes. He’d covered the “dangerous” part, and that was the most important. “How long would we need to keep the vacancy sign up?”
His shoulders raised in a shrug. “Indefinitely.” He straightened the collar of his polo shirt, as if concerned that it had been mussed by the gesture. “I won’t abuse the privilege, however. Only one visitor at a time, and no more than…let’s say four a year.”
Even if the person staying with them was obnoxious and left hair in the shower and empty milk cartons in the fridge, the strangers’ invasions would be temporary and infrequent. If it meant her brothers’ and sister’s freedom, then she could put up with Attila the Hun as a houseguest for a while.
“This would cover the whole fee?”
With a strangled cough, Dennis said, “Half.”
That still wasn’t possible. “Three-quarters.”
“Two-thirds, and I throw in a vehicle.”
“Three-quarters.” She could squeak by paying a third, but she’d rather have as much start-up cash as she could keep. “I have a car.”
“Registered to your name?”
Feeling stupid, she tightened her lips. “Three-quarters, we get an SUV and you get my Camry.” At least, this way, the five of them wouldn’t be jammed into her Camry the entire way to…wherever they were headed.
Lifting his right hand off the stroller handle, he offered it to Jules. “Deal. This is what I’ll need from you…”
EXCERPT #3
SUMMARY: The kids have been successfully kidnapped, and now Jules and her siblings are on the run.
Five Days Earlier
They’d been on the road for an hour before she broke the bad news.
“We can’t stop until we reach the car-switch point in Georgia.” When none of her siblings made any concerned sounds, she added, “It’ll be another five hours.” There was still no reaction. “I brought snacks and water, but no stopping means no bathroom breaks.”
“We’ll be fine,” Ty responded for all of them.
“Dez?” Jules couldn’t believe that everyone in the family had an iron bladder.
“I’m used to holding it when I have to go,” Dez said, sounding distracted. A glance in the rearview showed that she and Ty were playing some kind of writing game, probably tic-tac-toe.
That was weird. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you used to holding it?”
Dez’s round blue eyes met hers in the mirror for a second before Jules had to look back at the road. “It takes too long to use the bathroom in a pageant dress. I get to go before and after, but not during.”
Filing that away as reason number five thousand and seven why kidnapping was, for certain families, a good thing, Jules said, “After we get to the car-swap spot, Dezzie, you can pee whenever you want to pee, okay?”
“Hey!” Ty yelped. “Let’s not get crazy. You’re not in the backseat with her.”
Dez giggled.
“Will you miss doing the pageants, D?” Jules was suddenly hit by the realization that the kids’ lifestyles were going to change dramatically. They’d be scrounging for the basics—food, utilities, clothing—and extras would be impossible, at least at first.
“No.” Dez’s voice was flat.
“Good.” There was one concern erased. Unfortunately, a whole new batch swarmed in to take its place.
* * *
As she followed the directions to the location Dennis had referred to as simply “Billy’s,” the knot in her stomach, which had loosened a tiny bit when they’d crossed the Florida state line, drew tight again. The industrial area was just outside of Atlanta, and it was a maze of warehouses, each one looking more desolate than the one before. Jules was glad it was three in the afternoon, because she would hate to be wandering around there after dark.
“What’s next, Sam?”
“L-left. At Hawth-th-thorne.” He held his fingertip on their current line of direction. It was strange using written instructions instead of GPS. Jules kind of missed the robotic voice telling her when they were approaching a turn. With the old-fashioned way, they actually had to look for street signs.
“There!” Tio spotted it first. Despite their earlier unconcern about driving for six straight hours, Jules knew they were all very ready to be out of the car for a while. She turned onto Hawthorne Street.
“G-g-go three-quarters of a m-m-m…” Sam gave a huff and tried again. “M-mile. It’ll b-be on the right.”
“Got it.” She glanced at the trip odometer so she could measure when three-quarters of a mile had passed. “Is there an address?”
“N-no.”
Of course not. Why make it easy? “Does he describe the building at all?”
“Buh-rick w-w-warehouse.”
She snorted, sending Sam a sideways look. “To distinguish it from all the other brick warehouses?”
Although he just shrugged, his mouth curled up in a reluctant smile.
“Are we close?” Ty asked, jiggling his knee up and down. Jules wasn’t sure if he needed a bathroom or just to run off excess energy, then figured it was probably both.
“Two-tenths of a mile to go. Keep an eye out for it.”
Despite her earlier sarcasm, Jules picked out the correct warehouse easily, as did the three spotters in the back. Tio had finished his book an hour earlier, and he was anxious to retrieve another from his backpack as soon as they could stop. His knee was bouncing as much as his twin’s.
She pulled up to an oversized overhead door that looked like a semi could fit through it, and Sam jumped out. As he jogged over to the keypad, Ty opened his door as if to follow.
“Stay!” Jules snapped, her head whipping around in true Exorcist fashion. “Everyone else stays in the car until we’re inside.”
Although he groaned, Ty pulled his door closed again.
“It’ll be ten more seconds.” The overhead door started to rise, and Jules kept a sharp eye on Sam as he jogged back to the car. “I think you’ll live.”
No one appeared in the opening as the door continued to lift. Heart thudding in her throat, Jules eased the car forward as soon as there was room for it to fit. She tried to relax and trust that Dennis wouldn’t have sent them into a dangerous situation. Even though she didn’t know the man well—or at all, really—it seemed like killing off his boss’s clients would be a poor business move. It would definitely cut down on word-of-mouth referrals.
Once the car was through the doorway, she stopped to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. It looked like a mechanic shop merged with a beauty salon had decided to have a garage sale. Most of the space was taken up with standard equipment needed to work on cars, but there were racks of clothing against the far wall, as well as a table covered by several filled boxes. They were in too much shadow to make out the contents from Jules’s spot in her Camry. A hairdresser’s chair sat next to two shampooing sinks.
A bearded man in light-blue coveralls stepped out from behind a green Pathfinder and made his way over to her door. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her window and turned off the car. As he got closer, he also got bigger. His hair was brown and pulled back into a low ponytail, and his beard matched his hair except for a stripe of gray that ran through the middle.
“Julie Jackson?” he asked in a raspy drawl.
She almost didn’t recognize her new alias, but she caught herself in time and nodded. Her siblings sat as still and quiet as statues.
“I’m Billy.” Sticking out a grease-lined hand for her to shake, he grinned. It was wide, friendly, and made Jules’s held breath leave her in a relieved rush. She accepted his hand and shook it.
“Nice to meet you.” Once he’d withdrawn his hand, she opened the door a crack. Taking the hint, he stepped back so she could get out of the car. “Is there a bathroom here?”
“Everyone always asks for that first.” Chuckling, Billy pointed to a pair of doors next to the clothing racks. “There’re two. Have at ’em.”
The three in the backseat scrambled out and rushed for the bathrooms. Ty made it there first, and Tio hung back so Dez had first crack at the other one. Although Sam climbed out of the car, he circled around the front to stand next to Jules instead of joining the stampede to the bathrooms.
“Man of the house, huh?” Billy slapped him on the upper arm. Jules eyed her brother with concern, but he didn’t react to the contact except for tensing slightly. “Good for you, watching out for your sister. While you’re waiting, you can pick out your new look.” Looking comically like a game-show hostess, he gestured toward the wall of clothes.
“New look?” Jules headed toward the clothes and saw that the boxes covering the large table were filled with hair dye, cosmetics, wigs, glasses, and even fake facial hair, which made her laugh. “This is perfect for you.” She held up a blond mustache for Sam to see.
He snorted. “Right.”
“The guys will probably do fine going boot-camp style,” Billy said, having followed them. “You and the little lady should probably change colors, as well as chop off some of that.” He eyed Jules’s light-brown hair, which fell to her lower back. “It’s pretty distinctive.”
“Sure,” Jules said, even as she felt a slight pang at the thought. She hadn’t had short hair since she was a chubby seventh grader. In eighth grade, she’d lost weight and grown out her hair, and she still associated cropped hair with the pudgy little girl she’d been.
“Great!” Billy clapped his hands together, connecting with a sharp sound that made Jules jump. “Let’s get cracking.”
EXCERPT #4
SUMMARY: Not daring to stop or rest until reaching their safe house in Colorado, Jules drives her carful of sleeping siblings through the night.
Four Days Earlier
Jules had never been so tired. It made it worse that she was trying to minimize bathroom stops, so she couldn’t suck down excessive amounts of coffee or Diet Coke to keep herself caffeinated. Her eyes kept moving to the dashboard clock, which only made time go more slowly. It was a few minutes before four a.m. central time, and she’d been driving for almost twenty hours.
The rest of the Pathfinder’s occupants were sleeping, which filled Jules with an odd mixture of proud satisfaction and boredom. She was tempted to poke Sam, just so he’d wake up and she’d have someone to talk to.
“Bad sister,” she muttered under her breath. “Let sleeping siblings lie.”
It didn’t help that Kansas was freaking dull. The other states hadn’t been much better, but at least she’d had adrenaline and sunshine to help her through. Now that she was exhausted, having only the tunnel her headlights created on the mostly empty interstate made staying awake a form of torture.
“Eight more hours.” She glanced at the clock again. “Less than eight hours. Seven hours and some minutes.” “Some” sounded better than “fifty-eight.” It probably wouldn’t be exactly eleven a.m. when they arrived, but it helped to have a countdown.
“You ok-kay?”
Sam’s voice was low, but it still made her jump. After the initial shock, she welcomed the buzz of adrenaline. It might give her an extra ten minutes of being fully awake. “Hey, Sam. Did my muttering wake you?”
She saw his shrug in her peripheral vision. “Not r-r-really sleeping, juh-ust in and out.”
“Do you mind staying up and talking to me, then?” She sent him a grin. “I’m fading a little here. It’d really suck if I fell asleep and killed us all in the last hours of the drive.”
“Sure.”
When he went quiet, Jules smothered a smile. Apparently, he was going to do more listening than talking. She was fine with it, though. That was just Sam.
“I was worried about Tio at first,” she said quietly after a snore from the backseat caught her attention. “He hates change so much, but he seems to be adjusting okay?” She raised the end of the sentence into a question, hoping Sam would share his opinion.
“T’s f-fine,” Sam said harshly, although Jules was pretty sure the rough edge of his words wasn’t directed at Tio. “He knew w-we had to g-g-g…to leave. Sh-sh-she’d st-started l-l-l-looking at T-Ty.”
Her stomach churned, and Jules breathed through her nose, worried for a few moments that she was going to have to pull the SUV over so she could throw up on the shoulder. Swallowing several times, she choked down the need to vomit.
Sam apparently mistook her silence for accusation. “I-I tr-tr-tried, J-Ju! I tr-tried to prot-t-tect th-th-th…” His voice got louder until he cut off his attempt at the final word with a frustrated exhale. In just the dim glow of the dashboard lights, she could see his fists had clenched around handfuls of his jeans just above the knees.
“Shh.” Reaching over, she covered one of his tense hands with her own. “I know, Sam-I-Am. You went above and beyond for them, and they know it, too. That’s done, though. Our life with her is over, and we get to start fresh.”
His hand didn’t relax beneath hers, but he didn’t pull away.
“What’s something you’re looking forward to doing in our new Monroe, Colorado, life?” she asked, trying to lighten her voice to keep it from shaking.
His silence went on long enough that she figured he wasn’t going to answer. Just as she opened her mouth to change the subject, he said, “L-learn to drive. C-Courtney wuh-ouldn’t sign the p-perm-m-mission f-f-form.”
Giving his fist a final squeeze, she returned her hand to the wheel. “We’ll make sure you’re enrolled in driver’s ed at your new school. It’s only the second week of classes, so I doubt you’ve missed much. Probably just the ‘driving is a privilege’ lectures.” She sent him an amused glance. “Besides, you already know how to start a car, back it out of a space, and drive it across a parking lot.”
“Everyth-thing e-except p-p-parking.” A hint of a smile touched his mouth.
“Eh.” Jules waved off that small detail. “You’re probably still way ahead of the other students. None of them have actually driven a getaway car.”
His laugh was husky and so, so precious.
EXCERPT #5
SUMMARY: After a disastrous call at the local militia compound leaves Viggy traumatized, Theo just wants to leave his troubles behind for the evening. Unfortunately for Theo, it is not to be.
Present Day
“You’re taking Viggy home with you.” Hugh held the end of the lead toward Theo.
He couldn’t seem to bring himself to grab it. Instead, he glowered at Hugh, keeping his eyes off the dog half-hidden behind the other man’s legs. Theo had just left Lieutenant Blessard’s office, where he’d endured a half hour of getting his ass chewed, and he wasn’t in the mood for playing nice with Hugh. It’d been an endlessly long day, and there was nothing left inside him to give to Viggy.
Hugh kept the leash end extended. “This isn’t working. It’s been two months, and neither of you has gotten better. In fact, I think you’re both worse. From now on, where you go, Vig goes.”
Having the dog with him constantly would mean there’d be no escape from the guilt. Theo’s molars ground together as he considered his fellow cop, who was wearing his stubborn expression. Even though he was normally an easygoing guy, once Hugh dug in his heels, there was no budging him. With a grumbling exhale, Theo held out his hand.
“Good!” Hugh grinned as he slapped the end of the lead onto Theo’s outstretched palm. “Knew you’d see the light.”
Instead of answering, Theo just made another disgruntled sound as he forced himself to look at the dog. Blessard had been right about one thing. The cowering animal attempting to hide behind Hugh bore little resemblance to the confident, talented Viggy he’d been when Don was alive.
People probably said something similar about him. He knew he’d changed dramatically since the day he’d learned Don had eaten his service weapon. He just didn’t know how to return to his old self—or if that Theo had died along with Don.
“Why don’t you swing by the old Garmitt place on your way home?” Hugh’s suggestion pulled Theo from his morbid thoughts. “Otto saw some people going inside when he passed by there earlier this week. He would’ve checked it out himself, but he was headed to a call.”
Theo grunted. He knew exactly who’d moved into that house—the new waitress, although he had no idea why she’d thought it was a good idea to live there. It had been sitting empty for as long as Theo had been in Monroe—over five years. A few months earlier, the gossip around town was that some guy from out of state had bought the place, and everyone assumed it would eventually be torn down and replaced by vacation condos. As far as Theo knew, the new owner hadn’t done anything to fix up the place, nor had he made any move to demolish it. Theo was tempted to stop, to seize on the excuse to see the squirrelly waitress again, but that spark of interest was the reason he had to shut it down quickly.
“Be a police ambassador.” With a grin, Hugh casually began to walk in the direction of Theo’s aging Blazer. Viggy stayed close, not wanting to lose his hiding spot apparently, and Theo was towed along behind. “Stop by there. Welcome your new neighbors and find out what their story is at the same time.”
Despite his foul mood, Theo couldn’t restrain a huff of laughter. “You want me to get the gossip.”
“Sure.” Hugh’s smile didn’t falter at all. “Nothing wrong with being informed. Call me when you leave there.”
“No.” Opening the back hatch of his SUV, Theo tried to keep his expression severe. Damn Hugh for always cheering him up when he just wanted to wallow in his misery. “Viggy, load.”
Hugh positioned his hip closer to the opening before giving the bumper a pat. “C’mon, Vig,” he crooned in the voice he reserved for furry creatures. “Up you go.”
As Theo watched, torn between frustration and pity, Viggy jumped into the rear compartment of the Blazer and immediately pressed his body against the back of the seat.
“He’s such a mess.”
“Yeah.” When Theo glanced over, Hugh was looking at him instead of the dog. “He is. He’ll get better, though.”
With a skeptical snort, Theo slammed the hatch door with a little too much force.
EXCERPT #6
SUMMARY: Exhausted and hunted, Jules and her family just want to collapse when they arrive at their new home in Monroe, Colorado, but there’s a problem—they don’t have any furniture. A local shopping trip is required.
Four Days Earlier
A new life was expensive. Jules had been living on her own for five years, so she should’ve been aware of this, but trying to buy all the necessities for five people in a couple of hours was bringing her very close to a panic attack.
As she handed a ridiculous amount of money to the clerk at the sporting goods store, after spending an insane amount of money at the furniture store—only to find that everything couldn’t be delivered until next week—she mentally thanked Mr. Espina for his contribution. They were bleeding money, but a week sleeping on bare wood floors would’ve been torture almost as severe as something Courtney could’ve dreamed up.
“We st-still n-n-need kitch-chen st-st-st…th-things.” Sam’s voice was tight, as if one more shopping stop was going to send Jules over the edge, making her shove them all back in the SUV and drive them back to Courtney.
“I know.” Her smile was forced, but it was the best she could do. For all her years of being an adult, she’d scrimped and saved. Spending all this money in one go was almost painful, when her instinct was to squirrel it away. “I saw a thrift store a few doors down. Let’s haul this stuff back to the SUV, and then we’ll see what they have for dishes and pans and things.”
All four of her siblings nodded solemnly and picked up the sleeping bags and air mattresses they’d just bought. Their quiet obedience made her think that Sam wasn’t the only one worried about Jules changing her mind about keeping them.
As they crammed their purchases into the SUV, Jules felt the back of her neck prickling. She tried to resist the urge to look behind her, telling herself that it was just paranoia making her feel watched, but she had to turn. There were people scattered all around Monroe’s quaint downtown, from the older man sweeping the sidewalk in front of the leather repair and tack shop to the couple leaving the diner. Her throat tightened when she noticed a squad car parked on the street. Jules squinted, trying to see if a cop was inside it, but the sun reflecting off the windshield hid any possible occupants.
The prickle of awareness turned into the burn of multiple malicious gazes, and a wave of dizziness hit Jules. She pressed a hand against the side of the SUV until her vision righted itself again.
“Y-you ok-k-kay, JuJu?”
“Sure.” She needed to stop with the crazy. There was no way Courtney could have found them, not this soon. They were safe—for now. “Just starving. Are y’all hungry?”
Their enthusiastic, affirmative chorus sent a wave of guilt through her. If she was going to be their only parental figure, she needed to step up and do a better job of it. Feeding them was important. Mothering Rule Number One: Don’t starve the children, Jules. Swallowing a punchy laugh, she closed the SUV hatch door and waved toward the diner. “Let’s eat, then!”
The bell on the diner door sounded harsh and loud to Jules, and she tried to hide her flinch. A quick look around the crowded diner showed that no one was paying any attention to them, though, and she allowed her shoulders to drop from their current position around her ears.
“Sit anywhere!” a woman hollered from the far side of the dining area, where she was setting plates in front of a family with a couple of kids in booster seats and one in a high chair. “Anywhere you can find, at least.”
A scan of the diner showed no empty tables, except for a couple of spots at the high counter facing the kitchen. The bell clanged again, and Jules turned to see more people file in behind them. Just as Jules resigned herself to waiting and watching her siblings’ hungry expressions every time a tray of food passed by, a group of guys stood and shuffled out of a booth toward the back.
“There!” she whispered. From the corner of her eye, she saw the group of newcomers behind her shift in the direction of the vacated table.
“We’re on it,” Ty said, and he and Tio hurried toward the booth, sliding into the seat just before the other group reached it.
“Nice save.” Jules slid into the booth, holding her hand toward Tio and then Ty for a discreet slap of congratulations. “Lunch is apparently a competitive sport in Monroe. Good to know.”
“I’m glad we don’t have to wait,” Dez said from where she’d wedged herself between Sam and Jules. “I’m starving.”
Glancing around the table, Jules frowned. “Y’all need to tell me things. If you need something, let me know. If you’re hungry, speak up, and I’ll feed you.”
“Y-you’ve sp-p-pent a lot of m-money on us already,” Sam said, glaring at the carousel of jams on the table.
Jules eyed his profile, trying to figure out the direction of his thoughts. “It’s all stuff we need. Getting set up will be the most expensive part, and then things will get better. I’ll get a job, too.” She wasn’t quite sure what job she’d be able to get, though. Although Dennis had provided her with a shiny new social security number, Jules didn’t really want to test it out on a W-3 form. Also, she wouldn’t be able to put down any references, or a job history, or her schooling, or anything. Who’d want to hire someone without a past?
“M-m-me too.”
Jules, pulled out of her worried job-seeking thoughts, glanced at Sam, surprised. “You don’t need to work. School’s your job right now.”
He set his jaw in the way he did when he’d decided on something. Once she saw his expression, Jules threw up her hands. Sam’s stubborn streak rivaled her own.
“Fine. Get a job.” She put on her most determined face. “But no more than ten hours a week.”
After a long moment, he dipped his chin slightly.
“We’ll work, too,” Ty declared, and Jules turned her stern expression toward the twins.
“Not until you’re sixteen.”
Instead of responding, Ty and Tio looked at each other, speaking silently in that way they’d done since they’d been toddlers.
Jules narrowed her eyes at them. “No jobs for you.”
After a moment, Ty met her gaze and smiled innocently. “Okay. We won’t get jobs.”
She didn’t trust that for a minute. Before she could dig deeper into the twins’ plan, though, Dez piped up. “I want to work, too.”
“Dezzy, no.” Jules resisted the urge to bang her head against the table. “You’re a kid. Kids don’t work. They play, and have fun, and go to school. I want that for you.”
“I’ll do something fun, then.” Her thoughtful frown turned into a smile. “I’ll walk people’s dogs. That’ll be fun.”
Before Jules could respond, the server was at their table. Her curly red hair was poking out in all directions, and her heavily tanned face looked harassed as she handed them each a menu. “Sorry for the wait. It’s a zoo in here today, and one of my servers ran off with one of the dishwashers a couple of days ago. Anyway, you don’t care about that. Did you want anything to drink?”
A sudden idea popped into Jules’s head. “I’m actually looking for a job.”
The server gave her a sharp look. “Any experience waitressing?”
“No.” The interest in the woman’s face faded, and Jules cursed herself for not lying. She had a new life now. Why couldn’t she have waitressed in her past? Quickly, though, she dismissed that idea. Her inexperience would’ve been obvious in her first five minutes of work. It was better to save the lies for those things not so easily proven false. “You wouldn’t have to pay me, though. I could work for tips.”
As the server eyed her speculatively, Jules held her breath. That would solve the social-security-number issue, as well as bring in some much-needed cash.
“Trial period only. You screw up, and you’re out. Quietly. No tantrum. Got it?”
Resisting the urge to bounce on the seat in excitement, Jules tried to keep her voice calm. “Got it. When do you want me to start?”
“Tomorrow. Be here at five.” She started to turn away.
“In the morning?” Jules’s voice squeaked the tiniest bit. She’d never been a morning person.
“Yep.” The server stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “That a problem?”
It was a small price to pay for a job that kept her off the map. “Nope. I’m Jules, by the way.”
“Megan. Don’t mess this up.” Without another backward glance, she headed for the next table.
“I won’t.” Turning back to her siblings, she shared an excited grin with them. She couldn’t resist a little wiggle of excitement, as well.
A job! She already had a job. Their brand-new life was looking up.