Chapter 11

When I went to leave for the supply run, Jackson followed me out. He obviously had something to say, so I waited for him to say it.

“I don’t need to tell you about secrets, Hannah.” It was just like him to phrase it like that, leaving the warning itself unspoken. No one can find out.

“It’s only a secret,” I replied, “if you have someone to tell.” Otherwise, it was just another way of being alone.

And I was a master at that.

I took a three-mile hike and then two buses to get to a chain pharmacy in a town where I knew no one. I was wearing a massive flannel shirt of Jackson’s over the same pair of scrub pants I’d been wearing for days. No one paid me a second look.

I planned to pay in cash. I’d worked from the time I was fourteen until I’d moved out, and my second-year internship had been paid. I had enough money to make rent each month, and I was Rooney enough to keep cash on me by default. No one in a family like mine put things on cards, not unless there was a reason to want a paper trail.

As an additional precaution, I mixed the medical supplies we needed in with other purchases—deodorant, snack food, menstrual products, and, on impulse, a spiral notebook, a pack of pens, and a deck of cards.

I got in a line with a male cashier and put the period products up first. He avoided looking too closely at anything I set on the counter after that.

Two and a half hours later, when I arrived back at Jackson’s, the first thing I saw was my patient, propped up just enough to throw back a glass of whiskey.

“Miss me?” Harry said darkly.

I turned to glare at Jackson.

“We were out of meds,” the fisherman grunted.

“And now we’re not.” I dropped the plastic bags from the pharmacy onto the floor. “Good luck with that,” I told Jackson.

I’d been killing myself to save my patient’s ungrateful ass, and he was well on his way to getting drunk.

As I turned to leave, Harry’s whiskey-laden voice rolled over me from behind. “Don’t worry, Beardy. She’ll be back.”