Page 3 of Fire Peak

“Then we have lots in common,” Charlie told them. “I’d do anything for Lila too.”

“Hope you didn’t bring trouble for her,” Bear rumbled.

Charlie’s throat tightened. She sure hoped not, either.

Alone in the little paperwork nook, she curled up in the chair, arms wrapped around her legs, and fretted. What was Nick doing out there? How had he found her? She hadn’t been followed during her drive across Canada, she knew that much. He’d been waiting for her right outside Firelight Ridge. As if he knew that she’d been there just a few weeks ago, and that her best friends were there, and that it would be her next move.

How well did that man know her?

It was an unnerving thought, especially for someone like her, who avoided being pinned down at all costs. She moved around the world like a jet-setter with no fixed location. All her funds were in accounts that couldn’t be traced to her. She didn’t form new attachments. If it weren’t for Molly, Ani and Lila, she’d be a piece of seed fluff floating on the wind currents, always wafting here and there, never setting down a single root.

Well, and her father.

The thought of him twisted her stomach into a tight knot. This entire operation had turned into a mess, but she had to keep her eyes on the prize. She had to get him out of prison.

After that, no more risks. She was going to change her ways as soon as this little bump in the road was over.

But first, she had to get past that back-stabbing, smooth-talking rat fink Nick Perini.

2

One month ago. Barlow, Indiana.

If Charlie had a home, she would consider that to be her grandmother’s house in Barlow, Indiana. After her father had gotten arrested, her mother had brought her to Granny’s. The three of them had lived there together for an excruciating few weeks, during which Mom sobbed on the phone a lot and Charlie tried to focus on her new school. With her height, she had no chance of blending in, so instead she pretended she was above it all, a glamorous outsider stranded in the Midwest.

Once word got out that her father was on trial and likely going to prison, she had no choice but to double down on that act.

Only one person had seen through it—Lila Romanoff. Lila had set out to make friends with Charlie, and no one could resist that fairy-like blond elf. All of a sudden, Charlie had friends. Molly, Ani, Lila and Charlie all knew what it felt like to be outcasts. They’d bonded almost like sisters, supporting each other through one trauma after another.

Like when Charlie’s mom had had enough of Barlow, Indiana and fled to Paris to try to resume her old career as a model.

“You can come with me if you like,” she’d offered half-heartedly. “Or you can stay with your granny for the school year and stay with me in the summers. Of course it would be lovely to have you all year round, but you’d have to learn French and?—”

“I’ll stay here.” Charlie had cut her off before she could shred her heart even further. “That way I can still see Daddy.”

“Sure, honey, but you know after the trial he’ll most likely be in?—”

Charlie had jumped to her feet so they were eye to eye. She’d gotten her height from her mother. Nearly six feet at the age of fifteen. “But I can still see him, can’t I?”

I won’t abandon him, not like you. That was the subtext, and her mother had picked it up easily.

“Yes, you can. I hope you do. You’ve always been such a Daddy’s girl. I know he’ll love to see you.”

That was the thing about being at “home,” Charlie thought as she laced up her running shoes in the little entryway of her grandmother’s old ranch-style house. The memories didn’t leave her alone. Granny had died three years ago and bequeathed the house to Charlie. Her mother had never come back to the States.

Charlie stood up and stretched from side to side, trying to release the tension in her body. With her father’s diagnosis, she couldn’t wait any longer. He’d die in prison if she didn’t get him out. All the pieces were in place, and it was nearly time to pull the trigger. Breaking someone out of prison was an expensive job, but she’d acquired the necessary funds in the most poetically perfect way—by hacking the parent corporation of her father’s former company, the one that had hung him out to dry.

Yup—the corporate entity known as the Hobbs Corporation, one of whose subsidiaries had sold out her dad, was now two million dollars poorer. They didn’t know it, luckily. She’d simply changed one hundredth of a percentage point in the amount they allocated to a legal insurance fund. That one tiny change had been steadily funneling money into an offshore account that looked like it belonged to said CEO. If anyone caught on, they’d blame him, and deservedly so. He was a corrupt criminal who had forced her father to take the fall for his fuckups.

It was the least they could do, in Charlie’s opinion. As soon as the last of the transfers cleared, she’d delete that line of code and pull the trigger on the escape plan.

She grabbed her house key and tucked it into the pocket of her jogging pants. Time to shake off the travel dust. She’d just come back from a trip to New York, where she’d seen Molly and Ani, and taken charge of Lila’s goldfish. Glancing over her shoulder, she checked the glass globe tank, which she’d set right in the middle of the dining room table.

“I’m going for a run in the park,” she called to the fish. “Don’t answer the door while I’m gone.”

Goldilocks ignored her, as she’d done ever since Charlie had rescued her from Lila’s New York apartment. How could you explain to a fish that she was probably going to get flushed if someone didn’t take her in? Charlie wasn’t the maternal type, but she wasn’t about to let that happen.

“You should get some exercise too. Maybe a few laps around the fishbowl? Some lunges? Fish yoga, is that a thing?”

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