Lucas called me that evening at nine forty-three.
I know the time because Ethan had only just fallen asleep and I was still sitting on the edge of his bed in the dark, thinking about hands, and the phone vibrating in my pocket startled me enough that I nearly knocked over his water glass on the nightstand. I caught it. Just.
“Daniel Hayes is going to come to me tomorrow,” Lucas said, without preamble. “He may not know it yet. But he will.”
I moved to the hallway and pulled the door mostly closed. “What makes you say that?”
“Because Adrian Blackwood spent this afternoon being the kind of controlled that means something cracked underneath.” A pause. “And because Daniel Hayes fixes cracks. He’ll come to me because I’m the most direct route to you, and you’re the most direct route to Ethan
