"Maybe." Dread was a dead weight on her chest that made even that one word a labor to say.

"I'll bet they have a free room where I'm staying." He seemed as relieved as she was that he didn't have to drop her off right away, but the trip to his motel kept them together only a few more minutes. Estes Park Wasn't that big.

When the truck were stopped outside the office, she turned to him. "You don't-"

"I'll wait," Jake said. All night if need be. Probably Wasn't going to get any sleep tonight anyway. She got out, moving stiffly, as if she'd aged in the last couple of hours. He knew there were things he should do, but he sat there staring through the plate glass window at her profile as she arranged for a room. Only when she came out did he get out of the truck.

In silence they walked to her room, both of them looking everywhere but at each other. Bryn had the room next to her, and he had the one after that. The thought of Bryn stuck in the middle made him smile.

"What?" Phoebe asked.

"Nothing." He shrugged.

A silence.

"I'm just down here, if-" He stopped. "I'm sorry about the Chinese food."

"Tacky of them to take it."

"Might help your cop friend catch them. If he waits an hour and then stakes out that convenience store."

Phoebe chuckled. "Maybe." She hesitated. "Thanks."

It sounded more like good-bye, but he just nodded. "If you need-"

She looked at him then, regret written large in her eyes. "I-"

Can't. She didn't say it, but he knew That's what she meant. Words crowded in his throat, but all that came out was, "I know."

She was almost too tired to do it, but she did. She turned her back on him and opened the door. There was nothing left to say, so when she'd stepped through, she smiled, then slowly shut the door between them.

Jake stood there, trying to summon the energy to walk away. He was tired in a way he'd never been before. This was losing tired. And he Wasn't used to feeling it.

He rubbed the back of his neck, then touched the closed door, spreading his fingers against the cool surface. Pretended that she was doing the same thing on the other side.

Only she Wasn't. And he shouldn't be.

He sighed, turned and went back to the office. Inside, the clerk was starting to drift off to sleep again behind the counter. He showed her his badge. "The lady who just checked in? She makes any calls, you let me know immediately."

The clerk glanced down at the switchboard. "SHe's dialing right now." She wrote down the number and handed it to Jake. He waited until the light on the panel went out, then dialed the same number. After one ring a male voice said, "Video rentals."

Jake hesitated, then said, "Sorry, wrong number."

Jake dialed his cell phone again, as he left the office. "I got a phone number I need an address for." At Phoebe's door he hesitated, then moved on to Bryn's and knocked. Before she answered, he had an address.

"Saddle up. I think I've got Dewey Hyatt's address."

She nodded, shut the door in his face, then, it seemed, almost immediately opened it again. Course, he could have nodded off. He was that tired. He handed her the keys to the truck.

"You'd better drive." Last thing he saw before he nodded off was her pleased smile as she fired up the engine.

Chapter 10.

Phoebe closed the door between her and Jake, her fingers spreading across the cool surface as if sheer longing could push it and her through to the other side to him. In her mind, he was doing the same thing. When she heard him leave, his footsteps headed back toward the office instead of his room, she let her arm drop to her side.

Lightheaded and adrift, she reached for the phone he'd already be moving to monitor and dialed. She'd give him something and protect her knight.

Queen to king with a check and mate in sight.

When Dewey answered, he seemed to understand she Wasn't in the mood to chat and arranged where to meet her. He had to drive from Denver, so she had time, too much time, before he could come. Too much time to linger at this intersection between past, present and future.

She sat on the edge of the bed and listened as Jake came back. Did he hesitate outside her door? Then he was past her and knocking on the next. Phagan?s FBI agent. It appeared her feint had worked. It was the logical move for him to make, since his job was pursuing fugitives like Dewey. Phagan's Fibbie would probably go, too, since she'd figure Dewey could lead her to Phagan. A neat little game of move and counter move with cold, hard logic controlling the board.

After a time, she heard both of them get into Jake's truck, his engine fire, and then pull away. Good old logic that left the queen standing alone.

She looked around. Some palace. The room was shabby and sad, the thick air resistant to being anything but stale. It was the kind of place that made her want to leave.

It was inevitable, she supposed with a weary sigh, that the past would creep in now. Intersections were for reflection and assessment. They weren?t intersections if you didn't stop to think, to choose. Or to at least remember why you'd chosen the present course.

She Wasn't a dewy-eyed innocent. Her stepfather had made sure of that. But she hadn't known everything, merely felt it on a subconscious level. It was only later, when it was too late, that she'd put all the pieces together.

Things like his footsteps in the night. He'd come and look in on her, but it didn't make her feel safe or watched over. Some deep instinct had her pretending she was asleep until he closed the door and moved on to Kerry's room. She'd be asleep before he walked past again, but some nights, too many nights, muffled sobs dominated her nightmares.

With adult clarity, she knew she'd been too young at the time to cope with what she knew on that subconscious level, but reasoning couldn't stop her from feeling she should have done something. She'd spoken the truth when she said that Peter Harding liked the young. Her blessing and her burden were that her sisteR's sacrifice had saved her from Harding's attentions. Kerry Anne had made a bargain with the devil that she kept even after she left for college.

Back then, Phoebe had wondered, when any wondering could breach her burgeoning adolescence, why Kerry Anne came home every weekend when it was clear she hated it and hated him. Only when it was too late did she comprehend the full horror of her Kerry's existence and what she'd sacrificed to protect her little sister.

Somehow, some way Kerry had realized he was getting ready to break his unholy bargain with her. The last visit before her death, she'd warned Nadine to prepare herself to leave. She didn't give many details to Nadine, just that they were going to disappear with the help of her boyfriend, Phagan, but did warn her to travel light.

In the end, all she took were the shoes, the dress and the picture of Kerry Anne. That's all that Wasn't tainted by him, by the gratitude and slavish obedience he demanded from his stepdaughters.

Phoebe rolled onto her back and faced her greatest fear. Had she been the one to give away Kerry's plans? Had Montgomery Justice somehow picked up on or sensed her secret hope to get away from him? Had she been the accidental cause of her sisteR's death?

The weight of not knowing almost broke her. She opened the doors, let herself remember that night she'd come home and found her sister dying on the bathroom floor, her wrists slashed almost to the bone in an apparent suicide.

She had turned to go call for help, but Kerry Anne called her back. Her blood was everywhere by then. She'd had to kneel in it to lift Kerry's head onto her lap, to get close enough to her blue lips to hear her whispered words.

"He did this, didn't he?" Nadine had sobbed.

Kerry had nodded weakly. "You...have to leave...nothing...to stop...him now."

She hadn't understood what Kerry Anne meant. Not then, God forgive her. Or maybe He'd been showing mercy and kept her from understanding everything then. Full knowledge might have had her joining her sister on the tile.

Kerry told her where there was some money, not much, but enough to catch a bus and gave her Phagan's phone number, with a warning not to call him until she was clear. And Phagan had sent Dewey to her. He'd helped her disappear. Helped her find a new name, a new life with the Mentels. Later, after her marriage to Jesse ended, he'd come to her again with a plan for justice, not just for her but for other runaways.

It had been enough to keep her focused until she met Jake.