Sun wasn’t up yet, but I was.
Couldn’t sleep. Not with her coming.
I stood in the kitchen, coffee cooling in my hand, staring out at the gravel lot behind the clubhouse. The bikes were lined up like sentinels. Quiet. Waiting.
She’d be here by noon.
Kathrene Kyle.
Not Ricci. Not Katrina.
Not the girl who vanished into Liam’s world and didn’t come back.
The last time I saw her, she was around 10 and I was 15.
Mom stepped in first. Hair braided tight, eyes sharper than mine. She didn’t ask if I was okay. She knew better.
“She on the bus?” she asked.
“Sarah put her on last night,” I said. “No tail. No noise.”
Mom nodded. “Good.”
Dad followed, slower. His limp was worse in the mornings, but he still moved like a man who’d earned every scar.
“She know we’re waiting?” he asked.
“She
