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Still, every hair on my arms stands on end.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I whisper to myself.

It doesn’t help.

Then I look down the hallway and see my bedroom door standing open.

I stop breathing.

“No.”

I close it every morning. Another stupid habit. Another thing I know I would’ve done before leaving.

Every instinct in my body tells me to turn around, but my feet carry me down the hallway. My bed is still made and my dresser drawers are closed. Everything looks normal until I notice one of the closet doors sitting slightly open.

Then I see the bottle of perfume on my dresser.

It’s been moved.

A floorboard creaks behind me.

Not the usual settling of an old house.

A slow, deliberate step.

My heart slams against my ribs as I spin around, clutching my phone against my chest. My thumb moves toward Dean’s name, but a voice cuts through the silence before I can press it.

“You really thought changing your name would keep you from me?”

Every part of me turns to ice.

I know that voice.

I turn and face the man I prayed I would never see again.

The man who made me run.

But I’m not fucking running anymore.

Forty Two

Dean

“Daddy, does this look weird?”

I look up from buttoning my shirt to find Pen standing in my bedroom doorway wearing a navy dress, white tights, and two completely different shoes.

I stare at her feet for a moment. “Which part?”

She follows my gaze and looks down.

“Oh.” Aspen giggles, covering her mouth with one hand as if the shoes somehow put themselves there without her noticing.

I point toward the hallway. “Try again, baby girl.”

She disappears into her bedroom, and I check my phone for the third time in ten minutes.

Nothing from Blair.