UNBROKEN

What Cole Knew

Wren didn't decide to move so much as find herself already moving, pushing through the gallery door into the cool evening air before any conscious part of her had weighed the wisdom of it. Cole was still bent toward the sedan's open window, one hand braced on the roof of the car, his posture unreadable from behind — not defensive, not friendly, just still, the particular stillness of a man choosing every word.

She was ten feet away when he straightened and the sedan's window slid up, and by the time she reached him the car was already pulling away from the curb, taillights sweeping red across the wet street before it turned the corner and was gone.

"Who was that." It wasn't a question so much as a demand, low and hard, all the careful calm she'd managed inside the gallery burned away.

Cole turned to face her, and whatever composure he'd worn for that conversation through the car window had cracked at the edges. "His name's Reyes. He works for the Halloways. Private security, not law enforcement, though he'll flash a badge if he thinks it'll get him further."

"You know him."

"I've never met him in my life until four minutes ago." Cole held up both hands, palms out. "He followed me here, Wren. Not you. Me. He must have picked up my trail when I stopped at a gas station outside Ashford Bay. I wasn't exactly being careful, because I didn't think anyone knew I was coming. That's on me."

"You led him straight to me."

"I know." He didn't try to soften it. "I told him I was here for a boat restoration client. He didn't buy it, but he doesn't know for certain that you're the woman in that gallery. Not yet."

Wren's mind raced through the damage. "He'll report back. They'll send more people. Careful ones, this time."

"Yes."

"You didn't warn me. You *exposed* me."

"I know how it looks."

"It doesn't look like anything, Cole, it *is* something." Her voice rose sharply enough that a couple leaving the gallery glanced over. "I need to go home. I need to pack. I need—"

"You need to not panic-run in the next ten minutes, because a fast exit tonight is exactly what confirms whatever Reyes suspects." Cole's voice stayed low, steady. "If you vanish tonight, right after a stranger shows up asking around town, that's a pattern. That's confirmation. You have days, not minutes. Use them to leave smart, not fast."

"Why should I trust anything you tell me right now," she said, quieter now, all the fight bleeding into exhaustion. "You've been in my life for twenty minutes and you've already made it worse."

Cole was quiet a moment. "You shouldn't trust me. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time. But I'm not leaving Ashford Bay until I know you're somewhere safer than you are right now — whether that's a place I help you get to, or a place you find on your own without me anywhere near it. That's not me asking for credit. That's just what's going to happen, whether you trust me or not."

Wren searched his face for the tell she'd trained herself to find in five years of reading liars. She didn't find one. That unsettled her more than the sedan had.

"I have to get back inside," she said finally. "Don't follow me home."

"I won't." Cole reached into his jacket again — not the photograph this time, but a folded scrap of paper, a phone number scrawled across it. "If anyone shows up at your door before you're ready, call this number. I'll be three streets over at the motel on Harbor Road. I'm not going anywhere."

Wren took it without meaning to, tucking it into her palm as she turned back toward the gallery's warm windows.

She was three steps from the door when her phone buzzed — a text, from a number she didn't recognize, sent to a phone she'd had for exactly eight months, a number she'd never given to anyone outside Ashford Bay.

“Hello, Wren. It's been a long time. Your husband misses you.”

End of chapter six.