Her hand fumbled while groping for glow sticks, which should have been left hanging from a hook on the wall. She found one. Grabbed it. Cracked it.

The space lit up in ambient green.

She opened the nearest cupboard in search of bulbs, pulled out a four-pack, screwed one into the naked socket, and tried again. With light came the memories, and a wave of nostalgia as confusing as it was annoying. The room was exactly as her nine-year-old self remembered, albeit half the size, about as big as the cheapest cabin on a cruise ship’s lower level, and laid out near the same, with a bunk along the left wall—the type found in tight sleeping quarters, upper level folded up, bottom doubling as a storage locker—and on the right closets and a self-contained bathroom, in which toilet, sink, and shower all occupied the same tiny molded-plastic cubicle.

Clare had quite a few of these across Europe and the Americas, not so much safe houses as safe places. She also had drops in every city they’d lived in and in quite a few they’d only passed through, but those were just boxes or lockers with money, ID, maybe a weapon if it was small enough to fit. The hideaways contained enough to lay low for a few weeks, longer if a situation was dire enough to put up with the conditions that long, as well as everything needed to completely reinvent and vanish.

Each had a carefully crafted story to go with it, and well-paid caretakers who kept watchful eyes on the lights and the owner’s keys, and who knew how to get a message through if the unexpected happened.

Jill checked the bathroom, confirmed it still had running water, left the glow stick in the sink, and dragged a hand over the bottom bunk to examine the dust trail.

It hadn’t been that long since someone had been here—a few years, if that, definitely not seventeen—Clare, most likely, since Jack tended to avoid available resources for the same reason he avoided anything that kept him tethered to Clare.

Jill didn’t have that problem.

She’d made visits to several drops over the years, mostly because pilfering the cash out of them and arguing with Clare after the fact was easier than asking for money up front. Not that Clare ever said no—Clare fucking owed her and knew it, and guilt was useful in that way—but the ordeal of getting to yes meant paying Clare a visit, and it would take a whole lot more than Clare was willing to offer to make that worth it.

Jill lifted the plywood that held the bottom mattress and latched it in place.