I’ve always loved Portland. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would drive up often on the weekends. We’d spend a day—sometimes two if we found a place to crash—walking around downtown browsing Powell’s Books and thrift shops, stuffing our faces with food-truck wares, and relaxing in coffee shops and cafés.

The mid-June weather is beautiful, sunny and warm, and everywhere I look I see the marriage of nature and man. The streets are clean, the sky above a serene, cloudless blue. Sidewalks make space for trees and parks. Even the architecture of the high-rises around me seems purposeful, like each building is art in disguise.

Standing across the street from a massive bank, I double-check the information in my phone. The name of the bank has changed in the nearly twenty-three years since my mother was first here, but the address is the same.

Don’t, whispers Liam’s voice in my mind.

“Suck a dick,” I tell him, and jog across the street during a break in traffic.

The lobby doors are opened by a security officer. I thank him with a smile, then pause to look around. The space is expansive and hushed. White-veined marble floors, glistening dark wood and chrome accents. The building itself is old; there are echoes of the past in heavy marble columns and scrollwork engraved beneath high windows.

“Can I help you?”

I turn to face a woman, mid-fifties, with a sweet smile and intelligent eyes. My pulse jumps in my throat.

“Yes. I, uh, need to access a safety deposit box.” I hold up the little key.

Her eyes widen. “Wow, I haven’t seen one of those in years.”

I offer her the slight, sad smile I’ve been practicing for days. “It was left to me by my grandmother. She died recently.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” she says, giving my shoulder a gentle pat. “It’s not a problem. Right this way, please. My name is Loretta. You have the box number, I’m assuming?”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

She guides me through a hallway and into another, smaller lobby. At a reinforced steel door, she enters a code for clearance. There’s a beep and a thunk, and the door slides open.

“This way.” As she leads me further into the room, she glances back with a worried expression. “Now, I hope your grandmother added you as an authorized key-holder.”

I nod. “She did. And I have ID.”

Loretta smiles. “Excellent.”

At a small podium holding a computer, she takes my ID and checks it against the box number I give her. Every second that passes adds another notch to my anxiety. My armpits prickle with nervous sweat.

When she looks up with a smile, I release a breath of unadulterated relief.

“Here we go. Eden Elizabeth Sumner, registered as a key-holder by the box’s owner, Elizabeth Grace Sharpe.” She smiles again. “It’s lovely that you have her name.”

I nod, my throat tight. “I miss her terribly,” I lie.

With a cluck of sympathy, Loretta motions me once more to follow. Within ten feet or so, she begins to slow, scanning the metal slots just below eye level.

“Here. 8056.” She inserts her own key in the top keyhole and gestures to the one below it.

Open, please.

My key turns easily. The panel opens.

Loretta removes the long, steel case from inside and walks to a nearby table. Then she points back the way we came. “I’ll be just over there. Come and get me when you’re done. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I nod and she leaves. My hands tremble, sweaty fingertips leaving marks on the metal as I lift the lid.

“Holy shit.”

Even being somewhat prepared by my parents, nothing on this earth could have softened the shock of seeing what’s before me with my own eyes.

Money.

A whole fucking lot of it. Bundles and bundles of mixed denominations: twenties, fifties, and hundreds. Sitting on top of the stacks is a small velvet pouch and an envelope with my name on it. Ignoring the letter for the moment, I pick up the pouch.

I loosen the ties and peek inside.

My breath leaves in a whoosh as I see what Elizabeth stole. What Maddoc wants back. And I know with absolute conviction that regardless of his deal with Liam, I’m not safe.

As long as Maddoc thinks I might know where Elizabeth is—where this is—I’ll never be safe.

As I leave the bank, my oversized purse crammed full of money, every person I see is a potential threat. I’m sweating in earnest by the time I reach my dad’s borrowed truck.

Once inside with the doors locked, I start the car and get out of the city. It takes twenty miles for me to be convinced I’m not being followed. The back of my neck continues to crawl with the fear that someone saw me. Someone who belongs to Maddoc.

This is how my mother must have felt—still feels, if she’s alive—every moment of every day since leaving Los Angeles. On edge. Paranoid. Frantic. It makes me feel a twisted kinship with the woman.

“Mother-daughter bonding through fear for our lives,” I mutter, then shake my head roughly. “Talking to yourself. You’re talking to yourself. In the third person, no less. Get a fucking grip.”

I manage to curb the crazy and take an exit about ten miles from home. I find a busy parking lot in a little shopping center with food, gas, and a coffee shop. I park in the last row between two cars under the shade of a massive tree.

Then I open the envelope.