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The exhilaration I felt as she grasped the door and slipped into the orange glow of the bar with the girls was headier and richer and somehow deeper than almost anything I could remember feeling in my life.
I fully expected the porch lights on the outside of the building to pop. Instead, they blazed brighter with a sudden surge that illuminated the entire parking lot.
I looked at Skye and Meghan in pure bliss.
There was no question they’d made it. And there was no question, in my mind at least, that in some small way we’d tipped the scales to get them here.
There was no changing the past or righting the violence that had led to this dark night. April and the girls didn’t have any inkling we were even here. But just knowing that they wouldn’t be able to see any of us tonight was the happiest I’d felt for as long as I could remember. I imagined that, decades from now, maybe we’d all meet. But only after they lived long lives far away from the monster that had connected all of us.
Caught up in my reverie, I didn’t even notice that April had stopped in her tracks, just inside the doorway.
Because just a few yards away, sitting at the bar, was James.
49. SKYE
Cascade, Idaho
He was parked right at the end of the bar, his body facing toward the door. For the moment, his face was turned in a scowl toward the bartender, who had been about to clear his empty beer glass from the bar in front of him.
I’d imagined him out there searching in the darkness. Instead, he’d come here, and he’d been waiting for exactly this moment.
He’d done his best to alter his appearance on short notice. He was wearing a giant, puffy coat that made him look much larger than he actually was. His wet-looking hair was raked backward, slick against his scalp. And he was wearing a pair of April’s glasses, which she left in the car for driving. I hoped like hell that they hurt his eyes. He looked like an old-timey shady car salesman. It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t terrifying.
If April hadn’t noticed him at the exact moment she did—and scooped up both Kimmie and Emma to dart around the corner and inside the restaurant—he would have seen her. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds’ worth of argument with the bartender, who rolled his eyes and left the empty glass where it was on the counter.
I stayed where I was and watched his eyes lock on the swinging door, then drift toward the restaurant.
“He’s coming!” I screamed at Brecia and Meghan, who had followed April and the girls.
But by the time he strode around the corner to poke his head into the restaurant—April and the girls had disappeared into the bathroom.
He sat back down at the bar as I glowered at him, training his eyes on the door again, waiting.
We were trapped. Again. I wasn’t sure what he was prepared to do in this public setting if he caught sight of her. Did he have a weapon with him, tucked inside that big-ass coat? Would he pull April and the girls out the door and into the night, playing the “crazy wife” card? He’d been backed into a corner so far that he’d been willing to take the risk in leaving the cabin. He wasn’t going to leave without them, no matter what it took.
I knew what he was capable of. But nobody else in the sleepy bar and grill did. Sure, he might attract some attention and concern. He might have to turn on the charm to excuse the domestic kerfuffle. Would anyone see through it? Would anyone try to stop him?
I wanted to believe that the young couple at the bar would call the police. That the gruff bartender with salt-and-pepper whiskers would tackle him to the ground the moment he grabbed April’s arm. Would the camo-clad hunters gathered around the table in back reach for the backpack on the floor that—just maybe—contained some type of weapon?
I already knew it wouldn’t happen like that. The girls were afraid of a bear—not their dad. As soon as they saw him, they would rush to him in relief, throwing their little arms around his waist and cowering away from April as she screamed for them to stop. I could already imagine the customers’ anxious looks of concern fading as James disappeared out the door with all three of them into the parking lot, apologizing for April’s seemingly insane behavior while the girls clung to him in fear and April thrashed. The bartender, and the young couple and the hunters would exchange wary looks that said “What the hell was that?” and then hesitantly turn back to their beer or their burger. Later, when they were interviewed for the news, they’d say, “I knew something was off about him.” For now though, they would give him the benefit of the doubt. The burden of proof was high to get involved with a stranger’s business. I probably wouldn’t have done anything different if I were still alive.
50. MEGHAN
Cascade, Idaho
April locked the deadbolt to the entire bathroom then pulled the girls into the large disability stall at the far end of the room. The dull exhaustion was gone, replaced with a frantic, wild-eyed desperation.
The girls were looking at her in confusion. To them, this day had been one nonsensical, grueling tour de force that had ended in being rushed into the bathroom. “Mommy, why are we all in here together?” Kimmie started to ask, looking around the dingy stall in bewilderment. She looked like she was about to burst into tears again. Her red cheeks were covered in streaky brown trails. “I need a drink of water. I’m hungry.”
April’s whole body shook as she set both girls down on the dirty floor. Emma didn’t say anything. She looked stunned that she’d been carried as much as anything. I still wasn’t totally sure how old she was—maybe seven?—but I could imagine that she hadn’t been picked up like that in quite some time.
Skye slipped through the crack in the bathroom door, scattering underneath the hinge. “I’m positive he didn’t see them. He’s just sitting there, watching the door.”
April reached down to smooth Kimmie’s hair, mumbling something about everyone needing to use the bathroom first. Kimmie and Emma exchanged a look but obediently moved to the toilet while April walked out of the stall and closed the door behind her, eyes roaming over the bathroom walls as if there might be a back exit in here that she somehow hadn’t noticed on the way in.
As the sound of tinkling filled the silence in the bathroom, April moved to the sink and stared at her own reflection in the mirror.
When someone knocked on the door a few seconds later, she winced and shook her head, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. It was a woman’s voice. “Everything okay in there?”
