Page 132 of Conrad

She backed up and kicked it, hard.

It shuddered open, and she shoved in.

Eight thousand square feet. Eight thousand square feet of nooks and crannies and closets and stairwells and maybe even an apple cellar.

More, she’d gotten off a text to Harper, her podcast investigator.

Who’d had the brains to find her last time.

Time to hide.

FOURTEEN

“What if she’s not there?”Conrad sat, his hand on the dash, bracing himself as Jack thundered up the dirt road, following the GPS that Harper had sent him.

“One thing at a time,” Jack said. “If she’s not there, we regroup, and by that time, the police catch up.” He glanced over at Conrad. “We’ll find her.”

Conrad nodded, his jaw tight. He leaned back, his feet braced on the floorboards, his hand moving to the handle above the window. “At least you don’t drive like a grandma.”

Jack glanced at him. “Please. I taught you how to drive.”

“Stein taught me how to drive.”

“I remember one distinct driving session?—”

“You yelled at me, and I panicked, drove out into an intersection and stopped. You were terrifying.”

Jack grinned. “You were always a little tightly wound.”

They’d turned onto a county road, the GPS indicating a driveway ahead. “I’ve been tightly wound since the day I went through the ice.”

Jack turned quiet. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. Just always waiting for the earth to crack under my feet. I live with a weird desperation inside, always fighting to get out?—”

“Hence the panic attacks.”

He nodded.

“And your focus on hockey.”

“For a long time, yes. Although . . . I dunno. I started focusing on the fear of getting traded, and that messed up my game . . . and then I met Penelope. She sort of . . . gives me something to focus on. I forget about the roil inside when I’m with her.”

He hadn’t quite labeled it yet, but yes.

“So, Penelope Pepper, for all her craziness, outcrazies the crazy inside,” Jack said. He looked over at Conrad. “I get that more than you know.”

“Harper.”

“She’s always been the one.”

“I didn’t think there was a one for me until I met Penny.”

Jack slowed, working his brakes on the slick road, then turned into the wooded drive. “We’ll find her.”

Conrad drew in a breath.

“You could pray.”

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