And now that someone was running toward her.
Adrenaline poured through her, and every synapse was on high alert: move-run-stop-scream. Her chest tightened and everything about the weekend—every dead-end search, every time she saw the strange man in her peripheral vision—came crashing back over her, and Riley willed her legs to move, to turn, to run, but they wouldn’t. Her mind splintered, telling her to go for the phone, to turn around and run.
“Riley!”
The man was coming closer. She tried to make him out, but the night fuzzed out anything recognizable.
“Who’s there?” She was surprised by her own voice.
“Aw, turnip!”
Her dad popped over the curb and gathered her into a tight hug, completely oblivious to Riley’s terror.
“Geez! I can feel your heart practically popping into my chest!” he said jovially.
“That’s because you scared me half to death!” Riley snapped. “What are you doing here?”
“Mama Webber called Mama Spencer and let her know that Cassia was in labor and that Shelby was going to stay with the girls, so here I am.”
Riley followed her father to the car, tossing her backpack over the front seat and settling in. She blew out a breath, hoping to stave off a heart attack as everything churned inside her head: who sent her the note? Was this her real father? She stole a glance, examining her dad’s profile.
Ask them, JD’s voice echoed in her head. Ask to see your birth certificate.
As quickly as the thought appeared, it was stamped out by another, more pressing one: leave it alone. Riley got into the car, slamming the door behind her.
Her teeth had barely stopped chattering, and she refused to look into her purse, knowing the postcard was there. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it away, and now she couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Any connection to Jane O’Leary—or the mysterious postcards—would keep her tethered here, jumping at every breath.
Leave it alone.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight, turnip.”
“I’m just tired, that’s all.” Riley pressed her head against the cool window glass and closed her eyes, as much to trick herself that she was tired as to trick her father. But she felt every bump in the road, heard her father every time he took a deep breath or rumbled a few lines from whatever song was playing on the oldies station.
Through lowered lashes, Riley watched her father’s hand as it reached across the console, settling on the stereo.
She knew those hands. The long, thin fingers, the half-moon of white on his nails. They wouldn’t hurt her. They wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
They wouldn’t steal a child.
She sat up when her father turned into the opening of the Blackwood Hills Estates. Everything was manicured and tended to outside the gate, and big spotlights illuminated bunches of petunias and sweet alyssum as they flourished out of their spots and nipped at the edge of the grass. The grass was large and sprawling, so green it looked almost cartoonish and fake. But there was a man in a grey jumpsuit crouched behind a dribbling sprinkler. He had an ill-fitting trucker’s hat with the words STAR LANDSCAPING printed on it, and he looked up as Riley’s father’s car passed through the gates.
“Isn’t it weird to have a guy doing landscaping in the middle of the night?”
“It’s not that late. And to his credit, the guy was out here when I left to get you too. Hard worker. Besides, the floodlights make it look like daytime out there.”
? ? ?
Riley dropped the plug in her bathtub and nudged on the faucet. She gave it a moment before she sunk into the extra-hot suds. Thoughts of Jane Elizabeth pricked at her peripheral.
I will not think about her. I’m done with that, done with stupid “adventures.”
But even when she pulled her iPad into the bathroom and turned her favorite playlist way up, her thoughts went back to Jane. And every time she closed her eyes, it was a slide show—the plain, boring images on the postcards, the ominous notes on the other side, and the face of the man, smiling down at her from the train platform.
? ? ?
“You know what? You never finish anything. I’m not going to let you be my Lamaze coach because halfway through, you’ll wimp out and leave me there, half a baby coming out of my—”
“I get it, Shelbs.”
Shelby held the folded certificate and waved it at Riley as if she’d never seen it before.
“I just—I’m done with it, Shelbs. I checked everything. There is no information on any of these people. I’m telling you, it came with the baby book.”
“Right.” Shelby pushed her yogurt away and smoothed the certificate on the table. “They totally use a real sticker seal and actual stamped baby feet to make those throwaway inserts. You think I haven’t seen a thousand baby books? I swear my mom bought an eighty pack after my first brother was born.”