She seemed to agree with the counter, since that’s where the nods were going.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m okay.” She looked up at him tentatively, worried and so un-Carly-like that it felt like a punch. “Are you okay?”

The words felt bigger than the passage up his throat. “Yeah, sure.”

They both had the same lie, that they were okay. So to keep their own, they had to let the other’s lie go unchallenged.

“Are you going out?” Carly ticked her chin in the direction of the keys still in his hand.

“Yeah. Just for a little bit. Need a ride somewhere?” The hope for a yes from her was a sparkly, pricking thing. Something was getting lost in this goodbye. It felt important.

“No. But thanks, though. I’m not going anywhere.”

•  •  •

On Jonathan’s drive, his copilot was a relentless wariness. Watching the cars behind him and assigning intent to their distances from him, their turns and lane changes, all while not ramming into the cars ahead of him, it was a water-torture drip of adrenaline. He was glad he’d left the painting in the closet.

But the security system was killing him. The outside cameras alerted to two separate dogs, each with a person in tow, then two dogs trotting along together with no person at all for some reason, and some asshole on what appeared to be her first outing on in-line skates, wearing a groove into the sidewalk, up and down the street on her wobbly training mission.

He had to check all of this while driving with way too much purpose and hard braking. The whole thing on far too little sleep was a trick almost beyond his reach.

His skin stung every time the phone buzzed an alert. He thought of the painting. Owen. Marcelline. Sweat had his shirt sticking to his back. Maybe he should have brought the fucking thing with him.

When the foyer camera alerted, his relief had a certain logic. For all of Owen’s aura of getting shit done, Jonathan was fairly sure he couldn’t teleport.

Owen hadn’t driven up or walked over to the house or Jonathan would have known. It was just Carly.

Just Carly was very nearly the last thing he ever thought.

The camera showed Carly in the coat closet. And then again, still in the coat closet. And in the coat closet with some of the stuff pushed out behind her. Rolls of wrapping paper were among the flotsam in the images sent to Jonathan’s phone.

Interior 1’s last alert in the spasm of notifications showed Carly at the front door with the garment bag.

The outside cameras showed her getting smaller, with her arms full, heading up the street.

Oh, God. Something broke in him.

•  •  •

“Carly, you need to pick up the phone. What are you doing?”