“Yes. Yes, I’ll be here.” What am I going to do?

“I love you, Thea. It’s going to be okay,” he says, and I hear him talking to the twins on the other end of the phone.

“I love you too,” I say, meaning every bit of it.

Tony’s here.

We hang up and I pull on a dark sweater and my good running shoes. There’s a chill in the air today, and it’s not just because of the weather. Leaving the room, I check to make sure all my supplies are prepared, and every squeak of the floor or settling of the house makes my pulse race faster and faster.

Tony’s here.

What do I do? How am I supposed to fix this? To win? I feel like banging my head in frustration. Maybe it’s time I call Agent Dylan. I may not trust him but at least he’s not trying to get me killed . . . probably.

As I pull my phone from my pocket, the screen lights up. An unknown caller is calling me. My blood turns to ice in my veins. Is it Andrew again? Calling back to gloat? To get the final word?

The curiosity gets the better of me. I answer it. “Hello?”

There’s no response on the other end, and for every second that passes in silence, my heart rate increases. Just when I think he’s not going to say anything, he speaks.

“It’s been a while.”

Tony.

“What? You have nothing to say? I traveled all this way.”

I try and fail several times to voice my thoughts, but they’re all jumbled. I don’t have the upper hand here. I don’t know what I was thinking, how I could possibly have thought I could control this situation, control anything. All I’m thinking is that I want it all to end.

I force words out. “I’m tired, Tony. Let’s end this once and for all. You and me. Only one of us walks away.”

He’s silent for a moment, then, “You know, you’re almost taking all the fun out of this. Almost.”

“Meet me in thirty minutes at Sweetie’s Ice Cream Parlor. It’s in town.”

He laughs. It’s a gross sound that’s humorless and makes my skin crawl. “How dumb do you think I am? First, I’m not meeting you anywhere public. And second, I’m not meeting you anywhere you choose.”

My voice comes out steady even though I feel anything but. “Then what do you propose?”

There’s background noise wherever he is, and even though the sounds are familiar, I can’t make out any distinct place. “I made a friend.”

“Congratulations. That must be hard for you.”

His frustration is evident even from over the phone. “Shut up,” he snaps. “My friend doesn’t like you, and besides letting me know where you are, his investigators told me something interesting. Want to know what that is?”

I want to throw up. “No.”

“I have a daughter. Her mother, Elizabeth White, listed me as the father on her birth certificate almost eighteen years ago, but she never contacted me. She only had my name, so I suppose it’s not her fault. But Andrew sent me pictures, and wow . . .” He sounds like he’s talking more to himself now than to me. “She has my Sabrina’s eyes. Same as my mother. And her face, the shape . . . it’s just like Sabrina’s,” he says almost reverently, as if he’s looking at the picture now and is transfixed.