The bus arrived at Raleigh right on time.
Lili shifted her head from the window as they rolled into the North Carolina capital, ran her fingers over the curtain imprint on her cheek. Her nap for the past hour had been bliss—except for the BO wafting from two shaggy-haired guys sitting in front of her—but now reality crashed back in.
Miss Kent was pregnant.
She’d run away.
Grace had no idea she was coming.
She powered on her phone. Its battery low, she’d switched it off hours ago. Hopefully she’d have enough juice left to call a taxi.
She screwed up her eyes against the screen’s glare as forty-three missed calls flashed up. She swiped past all of them, found a cab company’s number, and punched it in.
By the time the bus pulled into the station, her cab waited by the curb.
She shot from the bus to the taxi, frigid night air raising goose bumps on her arms.
“Where to?” The cab driver’s frizzy black hair and red goatee reminded her of an artist’s impression of Lucifer. Lili pressed back into her seat and gave Grace’s address.
As the cab pulled away, her phone vibrated in her hand. The screen went black. Battery dead.
Lili hugged her backpack as they zoomed down the road. Her heart rate accelerated. She should have warned Grace she was coming. Then, at least, if this guy turned out to be a serial killer, someone would notice her absence. What had she been thinking? She was sixteen, alone in a strange city at night. According to the Law & Order reruns she’d seen, that basically guaranteed her kidnapping.
She watched for street signs and landmarks, searching her memory of Google Maps to try and gauge if they were going the right way. The cab made an unexpected turn left, and her hand shot to the door handle. Was this guy driving her to some abandoned cabin in the woods?
They turned again, right this time, and passed a sign to Grace’s cul-de-sac. She released her breath and eased her hand from the door handle.
The lights in Grace’s house were out as Lili exited the vehicle and paid the cabbie with her last twenty-dollar bill—save for a glow in the kitchen window. The taxi pulled away, and she stood in the driveway for a moment, gathering her courage.
She should have warned Grace, had almost done it six times during her first few hours on the bus.
But while Grace’s mom was generally a chilled-out person, she couldn’t run the risk that she’d meet her at the bus station and buy her a ticket home.
If she just arrived on their doorstep, they couldn’t turn her away.
Something brushed her leg. Lili leapt across the drive, slapped a hand over her mouth to contain her squeal.
A cat meowed, then sauntered off, its black body barely visible.
The shot of adrenaline energized her. She strode up the driveway, toward the front door. Muffled voices floated from the kitchen window.
Unfamiliar voices.
“. . . supposed to pay for a boat when . . . Sarah’s tuition?” a woman’s voice rasped, with the trademark throatiness of a chain smoker.
Lili backed a step away from the house. Who was Sarah?
A man’s voice responded, “. . . extra shifts, and Ray told me—”
“Ray?” The woman barked a laugh. “Max, you’d believe anything that man says.”
Lili bolted away from the door, down the drive to the mailbox. She must have the wrong number. Her stomach clenched as she read the address, then turned to view the house again.
It was the address Grace had given her months ago.
But it seemed it wasn’t Grace’s house anymore.
“Who’s there?” The front door of the house cracked open, and yellow light spilled onto the porch.
Lili sprinted down the cul-de-sac as fast as her legs could take her.