Two weeks later.
The air in rural Arizona was dry and hot, thick with the scent of sun-baked dust. I stood beside a rusted gas pump outside a dilapidated convenience store, the only sign of civilization for miles. The sky was a vast, indifferent blue.
In my hand, I held a disposable satellite phone, its plastic casing cheap and unfamiliar. No trace. No connection.
My thumb hovered over a number. Leo.
I took a deep breath, the desert air scratching my throat. I pressed call.
Thirty seconds. That was all I allowed.
The line connected. A hesitant voice answered. “Hello?”
“Leo,” I said, my voice rough, unused.
A choked sob came through the line. “Dad? Oh my God, Dad, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “What happened?”
“They… they found me, Dad,” Leo whispered, his voice thick with tears. “Federal agents. Agent Kincaid. They’ve got me on house arrest. Twenty-four seven. They said I’m a co-conspirator. For paying Brenda. They took my laptop, my phone. Everything.”
He paused, a desperate plea in his voice. “They said if you come back, they’ll let me go.”
My hand tightened around the cheap plastic phone. I thought I had saved myself. I had escaped, vanished. But my so-called victory had come at a cost I hadn’t anticipated.
I hung up. No goodbye. No words of comfort I couldn’t deliver.
The phone was dead in my hand, another piece of my old life severed. I stood there, under the endless Arizona sky, the silence pressing down on me.
I thought I built a fortress to keep the darkness out, but paranoia only locked me inside with my own mistakes.
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