Chapter 2
I didn't want to go with them.
Every lesson my aunt Ruth had ever taught me screamed at me to run. Don't get in the car. Don't trust them. Silver Ridge is dangerous.
But the stranger — the man who'd bumped me, who'd recognized my mark — was out there somewhere. And I was alone in a town where I knew nobody.
Jack must have seen the fear in my eyes. He held up his hands. "I'm not going to force you. But that man — Holt was his name, by the way — he works for someone who has been looking for you for a very long time. If you leave here alone, he will find you. And he will take you somewhere you'll never be found."
"How do you know my name?" I said.
Jack's mouth tightened. "Because I've been looking for you too. For twenty-two years. Daniel — your father — he was my best friend. When he died, his wife — your mother — she disappeared with you. I searched. For years. But she'd covered her tracks. She didn't want anyone from Silver Ridge to find you. She thought we were all the same. She was wrong."
"My mother is dead," I said. It came out harder than I intended. "Car crash. When I was three. Aunt Ruth raised me. We moved. A lot. She said — she said it was because of Silver Ridge. That you people killed my father."
Something crossed Jack's face. Grief. Anger. Something older.
"Your father was killed," he said. "But not by Silver Ridge. By someone inside Silver Ridge. A man named Rook. He was my second-in-command. He ran drugs behind my back. Daniel found out. He was going to tell me. Rook got to him first. Killed him. Made it look like a robbery."
My hands were shaking. "And my mother?"
"She knew. She was scared. She ran with you. Rook has been hunting you ever since. Because Daniel left something behind. Evidence. A ledger. Proof of everything Rook did. Rook thinks you have it. Or that you know where it is."
I stared at him. "I don't have anything. I don't even know what you're talking about."
Jack studied me. "Maybe you don't know you have it. Daniel was careful. He would have hidden it somewhere you'd find. Something you'd keep."
My hand went to my neck. To the small silver locket I wore — the only thing I had from my father. Aunt Ruth had given it to me on my eighteenth birthday. She said Daniel had left it for me. I'd never been able to open it. The clasp was stuck. Or so I'd thought.
Jack saw my hand move. His eyes narrowed. "What's that?"
"Nothing," I said, too fast.
"Claire." His voice was gentle. "If that locket has something inside it — something Rook wants — then you are in more danger than you can imagine. And I am the only person standing between you and a man who will kill you without blinking."
I looked at him. At the three bikers. At the empty highway where Holt had disappeared.
And I made a decision.
I took off the locket. I handed it to Jack.
He turned it over in his big, calloused hands. He found the tiny seam. He pressed something — a hidden catch. The locket clicked open.
Inside, no photo. No lock of hair. Just a tiny micro-SD card, smaller than my fingernail.
May you like
Jack looked at me. His face was pale.
"Claire," he said. "I think you just found your father's ledger."
