“Don’t say motion sickness,” I cut in. “No one’s gonna believe that.” I study her, waiting. “Is there anything you’d like to share with me?”

She shifts, uneasy. “I’m fine.”

Bullshit.

There’s too much about her that doesn’t add up. And this? The nausea, the way she won’t meet my eyes? It only makes me more suspicious.

Is she sick? Running from something? Dying?

I can’t have her in here if she’s got something serious going on.

I think of Therese. How she looked when she got sick. How she hid it at first, like keeping it to herself, would make it go away.

This feels too similar.

I need answers.

I grab an employment application from the desk and slide it toward her. “Fill this out.”

She stares at it like it might bite. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“You don’t want the job anymore?” If she walks away now, it’d be easier. No complications.

“I do,” she says quickly. “I just thought—you know—you’d pay me as a contractor.”

“Then fill out your information.”

She hesitates. “I can just get paid under the table. It’s easier.”

I lean against the counter, studying her. “Easier for who?”

Blythe tugs at her sleeve. “For both of us.”

I don’t say anything. Just watch.

The way her fingers twitch. The way her shoulders bunch. Not just uncomfortable. Reluctant.

And then, for the briefest second—fear.

There it is.

I push the form closer. “Fill it out, Blythe.”

Her lips part, but no excuse comes. She swallows hard, eyes darting everywhere but at me.

I don’t know what she’s hiding.

But I do know one thing.

She’s not going to hide in here without me knowing exactly what I’m harboring.

Chapter Nine

Henrietta (Blythe)

I don’t know what terrifies me more—that he might hit me or that he’ll figure out who I really am.

My fingers dig into the edge of the counter, the smooth surface grounding me just enough to stop my hands from shaking. My chest rises and falls too fast, the air too thin, the room too small. I focus on the paper in front of me, but the letters blur. The lines where I’m supposed to write my information stretch and distort, a trap waiting to snap shut the second I give myself away.

I don’t have a social security number.

I mean, I do.

But if I write it down, if I let those numbers exist anywhere outside my head, he’ll know. And if he knows, maybe Winston will, too. Maybe this will be the thing that tips him off, that puts him back on my trail, that unravels everything I’ve done to disappear.