IT WAS TIME TO RUN.
I’d stayed as long as I could, crouched behind Eloise and Gary Jansen’s house, watching the patrol-car lights on the trees. I’d called the local police as soon as Regan gave me the address, not knowing if there was a chance the couple might still be alive. I’d arrived just minutes before the first officers, hoping to catch Regan, but finding only my dead foster parents. As crews of tactical officers headed toward me, blind to my presence, I turned and ran through the yard, through the gate.
I imagined myself running from what I had seen, but as I pushed on, the tears forced their way up from my chest, into my throat. I sobbed once, giving myself just a second to surrender to the pain. Then the fury came, hot and comforting as it always was, rushing like fire through my veins. I glanced up and saw a helicopter tracking west. Curtains were twitching and front doors were opening. A neighborhood responding to Regan’s horror.
Eloise and Gary had fostered me when I was a teenager. I had almost no memory of my time there, meaning I’d probably been in their care only a couple of months. The address hadn’t rung a bell, but the extensive garden, full of wet flowers and flat, sprawling trees, had. I remembered Eloise had put the most effort into trying to crack my armor. She’d started predictably, with baked treats. Invitations to have “girl” chats. New clothes. The couple had been fostering a pair of toddlers at the time they had me. I had spent much of my time in the garden, brooding in the shade of one of the trees, a book in my lap that I only lifted as a shield when Eloise approached me.
I ran through the forest now and turned left down a wide dirt track cutting through the trees. I was breathless, unable to stop a furious growling coming from between my teeth, tears streaming down my face. The blood rushing through my head was pounding so hard that when I slowed and searched my pockets for the keys to the bike, I didn’t even hear her approaching. I went to the bike, hidden behind a huge eucalypt trunk, and brought the keys out of my pocket.
“Harry.”
I jumped at the voice, turned, and saw a red-haired woman standing at the roadside, seemingly as puffed as I was. I’d seen the woman through the back windows of the house, sweeping the crime scene with her gun. Whitt’s new partner. She must have spotted me as I turned and ran off into the woods.
She didn’t say another word. As I turned to flee, she raised the gun and fired.