Between the Cracks and Burning Doors: Book 2 of The Extraction List Series by Renee N. Meland Page A

night then. If you’re in as much trouble as it sounds, you better just stay here.”
    He didn’t ask what I’d done. “You don’t want to know what happened?”
    Nick put both hands on my shoulders, looking down at me with an expression like a proper father would have. “Don’t care. You saved us. Don’t care about the rest of it. Now come upstairs and eat something. And for God’s sake, wash up, you stink.”
    I obeyed.
     
    I went in the bathroom and shut the door, staring at myself in the mirror. Officer Keegan had been at the church earlier that morning. He may have recognized me. If he had, why hadn’t he just stayed there and arrested me? Maybe he wasn’t sure yet.
    I had to assume he had remembered me—maybe not totally—but he had come back for a reason. Nick was right, I had to be careful.
    I couldn’t go out anymore. I’d have to figure out some other way to free more of Maureen’s kids. I’d talk to her later, or send one of the kids over with a letter that night.
    Why hadn’t he arrested me?
    The question kept repeating itself in my mind. My breath came in short gulps. There had to be a reason.
    Or maybe not. Maybe I had gotten lucky. For now, there was nothing I could do but wait.
    But the waiting felt like suffocating helplessness, and I imagined myself breathing in shorter and shorter breaths until the oxygen was gone and I was swallowed up forever.
     
    That night, I broke my own word. I was going to send Alexis with a note to Maureen, asking if we could make some other arrangement. Instead, I went myself, convincing myself that the cover of night was enough to keep me safe.
    When I showed up at the front door, her voice came out in a whispered hiss. “Are you stupid? Two of those officers are here right now. Get out of here.”
    “I can’t. I have to tell you something.”
    She paused and shut the door behind her. “Make it quick.”
    I took a deep breath. “They’re showing my face around. Keegan came to the church. Didn’t find the kids but was showing people my picture. I can’t be out and about anymore. At least not for a while.”
    She glared at me.
    “I know, I know, I’m out now, but I had to talk to you. We need to figure something else out. I can’t sell the drugs anymore. Too risky. Especially after last night.”
    Her face dropped, and I could tell she knew I was right. “Guard.”
    “What?”
    “Guard. Guard the girls. Those police guys are only here at certain times. Before and after they’re here, you stand guard. I’m gettin’ more and more times where people are gettin’ too rough and I either have to sweet talk them or throw them out. Having you in the corner keeping watch might make them behave themselves, and I won’t lose any more customers.”
    Security. Not a bad idea. Certainly not a good one. I knew I’d have to be really careful not to cross paths with Keegan and the other officers. “Deal.” I leaned in to kiss her, but she stepped back. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”
    “Get here at eleven. Not before, not after.” She shut the door and I was left standing on the porch alone.
    Both that morning and that night, she hadn’t been able to get away from me fast enough. All I wanted to do was be near her. When we were together, I could forget that I still felt the knife in my grasp, and that I still heard the dead men screaming in my ears. But she was pushing me away, and she didn’t need to use her hands to do it.
    When I crawled in bed that night, I studied her face in my head, trying to find some clue as to why she was pulling away from me. When she looked at me, she didn’t see the blood from the men at the warehouse, or my father’s bones. Or maybe she did, but she knew she could look at herself and see the man on her floor with his throat slit open.
    We were both killers, forced to defend our own survival. No one but each other would ever understand the emptiness, the hollow spot inside where the before-time used to be. The time