Ness Ashby turned herself in to the FBI. I expected Cady to have us packed and on the road the moment we’d finished giving our statements, but this time, she didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Pandora’s box had been opened inside that ancient sequoia, and not even one of the most stubborn women I knew could close it.

“Which tie says ‘Congratulations, it’s a boy, I have completely accepted the fact that my father is not, in fact, an astronaut’?” Jude held up two nearly identical bow ties for my inspection. He was preparing to spend the day with Mac—clearly a bow tie occasion.

“The one on the left,” I deadpanned.

Jude smiled beatifically. For someone who’d been kidnapped less than twenty-four hours earlier, he’d bounced back quickly.

“So,” I said. “You and Mac.”

“I clearly inherited his manly physique.”

“Jude.” I gave him a look.

“I don’t know what to say, Kira mine. The man is responsible for half my DNA. He seems like a good guy. Broad shoulders, steady in a crisis, likes dogs…”

“He would have been there,” I said quietly. “If Cady had let him, if she’d told him about you—”

“Mom loves us.” Jude stopped messing with the tie. “More than anything, Kira. She would have taken a bullet for me yesterday. Given your newfound proclivity for bluffing gun-toting little old women, I can only conclude that she might still end up taking one for you someday.”

Jude wasn’t the type to get bogged down in ifs. He loved me. He loved Cady. Cady and I loved each other. For Jude, it really was that simple.

I swallowed. “I’m sorry.” Those weren’t words I’d ever really understood. They weren’t words I’d had much—if any—practice saying. “About yesterday. The things I said to you. The way I said them.”

“You’re allowed to have feelings, Kira. In fact”—Jude tweaked the end of my ponytail—“I think it’s a good thing. Before you know it, you’ll be holding a boom box over your head, professing your love for—”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Changing the subject now!” Jude declared. “Is it me, or does surviving a kidnapping really bring out my cheekbones?”

* * *

I spent the afternoon with Free, out at the tree where I’d buried Silver. She made me tell her about finding Silver, about wrapping her body in the sheet, about digging the grave. We cried, both of us—ugly-cried, with a side of hating the world and loving the ones still with us even harder.

“It means something,” I told Free, rubbing NATO’s ears as he laid his head down in my lap, “that you stayed so I could go.”