“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Sure. I’ll get ahold of her. The police really wanted to talk to her?”

“What do you expect? She’s the person closest to you.”

“Right.”

“I’ll let you go if you want to get on that,” I said. “She’s probably worried. And scared.”

I chose not to tell him about Kyle trying to break into our houses. There wasn’t enough time to explain it all, and I wanted to let him talk to Sam. She could explain it to him. And if he needed to know more, we could talk about it at another time, when things were less frantic and rushed.

“Okay, I’m going to let you go call her.”

“Wait,” he said.

“What?”

“There’s something else I need you to do,” he said, his voice level. “Something only you can do for me.”

“Blake, what the hell else could you want? I went into that house. I risked everything.”

“This is an easy request, okay? Just meet me at your house.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

I drove back across town, back to our house to meet Blake.

I’d made my excuses to Amanda and her parents, telling them I had something to take care of. It took a little convincing to get Amanda to agree to stay behind. Having Henry in an unfamiliar place made it tougher to keep him on his schedule, although neither he nor his grandparents minded in the least. But I told Amanda it was better if she stayed, if she remained there a little while longer, until we were sure all the dust had cleared.

She walked with me to the door and told me how relieved she was that Kyle was out of the picture.

“I know I’m not supposed to feel that way,” she said. “In fact, I feel awful just thinking those kinds of thoughts. But he scared me. He really did. And to think . . . he killed someone, Ryan, and he came and tried to get into our house. With Henry there.”

“I know. I know.”

We held each other longer than we usually did outside of our home. I breathed in her scent, a hint of vanilla from her shampoo. I didn’t think she’d showered that morning, but it didn’t matter. She smelled better than I did on any day. And I took in her scent like it was oxygen filling me with strength and resolve.

Amanda stepped back but not completely out of my grip. She looked up at me.

“I have a feeling I know who you’re going to see,” she said, her face showing concern.

“He finally answered his phone. We’re just going to talk at the house. He’s been through a lot the last day or so. It can’t be easy to have the police looking for you like that.”