She nods. “I had to ask her questions, because I couldn’t totally understand. I had to ask pretty pointed questions.”

“About what?”

“About my father.” Something ripples over her face, a brief flash of pain before she swallows it down. Lifts her chin. “My dad’s in trouble. He works for a financial firm, and it’s something to do with that. The police came. They arrested him and took computers. Mom doesn’t know what’s happening. My sisters are home with her and they’re younger. Everyone’s scared and none of them understand.”

Imagining it makes my chest hurt. Harper in line, asking increasingly frantic questions. Brecken overhearing, whether or not he wanted to.

“Brecken heard you,” I guess.

She nods, swiping at her eyes. She’s crying. “He did. I was so scared and stuck in the middle of the stupid airport. I couldn’t even get out of line, and I was so flipped out. I blurted everything to him. Every awful embarrassing thing.”

“Harper,” I say softly, not knowing what to say. What even to ask.

“He was nice to me, and he’d never even met me,” she says. “He knows I’m desperate to get home, and I think that’s why he stole the gas. I even think that’s why he wanted to drive. I know, it’s stupid. Total pompous man bullshit, but his intentions aren’t evil.”

I nod, not because I agree with her, but because I get it now. To her, Brecken is some kind of hero.

I try to play my opinion close to the vest, but whatever expression crosses my face must say I don’t share her view.

“I get it,” she says. “I know some bad things have happened.”

“He ran over someone,” I respond. There’s no way to make those words sound anything other than ugly.

“That was an accident,” Harper says. “Obviously that was an accident. Do you believe it could be anything else?”

“After everything that’s happened today, I have no idea what to believe.”

Her gaze is unflinching. “I believe it enough that we are not leaving him out here.”

“Then we’ll wait here for the police,” I say. “All of us.”

Brecken opens the passenger door again, and Harper rolls her eyes. Before she can complain or even take a breath to speak, he’s out of the car, moving with long heavy strides in our direction.

I tense because something’s wrong. Very wrong. I can’t tell what he’s looking at, but every hair on my body is standing on end.

“What is it?” Harper asks, and in that second, Brecken stops in his tracks, eyes fixed on something near the building. I turn to look, but there’s nothing but shadows and snow and—

Movement.