Lie, I thought, reaching up to smooth a stray piece of hair back from my face. Just lie. Just do it. Just say something! What did three-digit numbers usually represent? A price, a time, an area code—

“Oh!” If I was right, Oh God was more like it.

“Oh?” Liam repeated. “Oh what?”

“I’d forgotten—well…” I corrected myself. “I could be remembering it wrong, so don’t get too excited, but I think it’s a Virginia area code.”

“There’s no area code that’s four digits,” Chubs said. “Five-four-fifteen doesn’t work.”

“But five-four-zero does,” I said. “People sub out O for zero when they talk sometimes, right?”

Liam scratched the back of his head and looked over at Chubs. “Five forty? Does that sound familiar to you?”

I turned toward Chubs, suddenly seeing him in a new light. “You’re from Virginia?”

He crossed his arms and looked out his window. “I’m from Northern Virginia.”

Well, that figured. “Five forty is western Virginia,” I explained to Liam. “I’m not sure how far north and south it extends, but it should be right around this area, I think.” I showed him on the map. I didn’t just think, I knew. 540 had been my area code when I lived with my parents in Salem. “There are a number of cities and towns, but there’s also a lot of undeveloped land—not a bad place to hide out.”

“Is that a fact?” Liam kept his eyes on the road and his voice even, but there was something maybe a little bit too casual about it. “Did you grow up near there?”

I looked down at the notebook in my hands again, feeling something clench in my chest. “No, I didn’t.”

“Virginia Beach, then?”

I shook my head. “Not any place you’ve been or heard of.”

I heard Chubs’s tongue cluck as he opened his mouth to say something, but there was a sharp cough from the driver’s seat. The topic had been dropped, and no one was willing to try picking it up again, least of all me.

“Well, it’s as good of a lead as any, though I wish the area was a little smaller.” He glanced my way. “Thanks, Ruby Tuesday.”

A not unpleasant warmth rushed up from my center. “Don’t mention it.” And if I’m wrong… I let the thought trail off. It was a good lead.

With one last glance down the alley to make sure it was clear, Liam refolded the map and tossed it back into the open glove box. Betty came back to life with a low growl.

“Where are we going?” Chubs asked.

“It’s a place I know.” Liam gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Someplace I stayed before. The drive shouldn’t take us that long—maybe two hours. If I get lost, though, one of you Virginians is going to have to step up to the plate and help me out.”

It had been a very long time since someone had labeled me like that—as a person with a home. It was true, I had been born here, but Thurmond had been my home for nearly as long as it hadn’t. Gray walls and concrete floors had bleached out almost every memory of my parents’ house, stripping away first the small details—the smell of my mom’s honey-soaked biscuits, the order of the pictures lining the staircase wall—before going on to devour the bigger ones, too.