Page 74 of One Last Promise

No, the memory.

The.Memory.

She blew out a breath. This was why she had to get as far away as she could from Rigger.

Please let him have taken the money and left. But her gut—and her nightmares, apparently—didn’t believe that.

She wiped a hand across her cheek. “I’m fine, honey. I . . . Listen, when we get to the house, I want you to grab your favorite shirts, five of them, and just a couple pants, and don’t forget yourwinter jacket, okay?”

Silence. She glanced up. Hazel’s gaze hit her hard through the rearview mirror.

“No.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Hazel folded her arms, crossed her legs.

“No, I’m not going anywhere. I wanna go back to Moose’s house.”

Tillie drew in a breath and tightened her hands around the steering wheel as she turned off the highway, toward Eagle River. She shook her head. “That’s not possible.”

“It is possible. He said we could stay—I heard him.”

“Yes. But we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” She gritted her teeth. Because eventually her sins would catch up to them, and Moose would get caught in the fight. Because she could only take care of one person in her life. Because—“Because it’s just you and me, honey. That’s the way it has to be.”

“I don’t like that way.”

Neither did Tillie, and she tightened her jaw as she pulled onto their road, then into the driveway.

No fire, no car in the driveway, no evidence that Rigger had been here to terrorize her. She would bet that he’d called his family to fly here as soon as Roz was injured, giving himself a new identity, a way to throw off the detectives.

She put the car into park, turned it off, unbuckled.

Hazel didn’t move.

“I’m going in to get some things. And then we’re leaving. If you want anything, you should go now.”

Then she got out and didn’t look back.Reality. She’d learned the hard way, and it was time for Hazel to figure it out too. She couldn’t look after her forever,and?—

“I hate you!”

She turned, and Hazel had gotten out, rounded the car, and now picked up a rock as if to throw it. Tillie didn’t move.

Tears raked down Hazel’s face and she shook. “I . . . I don’t want to live in the car anymore. And I don’t want to . . . I don’t want to . . .”

“Hazel.” Tillie strode over, dropped to her knees, and pulled Hazel to herself. “I know. I know.”

Hazel buried her face in Tillie’s neck. “I miss Grandma Roz. And I . . . just want everything to go back to the way it was.”

Her too. Only, even then . . .

No, Tillie wanted better, for both of them.

She held Hazel away from her. Met her eyes. “Hazelnut. That man that was in Roz’s house—he is a bad man. A very bad man. And I don’t want him to?—”

“Is he my father?”

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