“Our house?” I whispered.
Jesse nodded, pain passing across his face.
“They showed me pictures. A car sitting down the block from our place. Men outside Dad’s job. Someone near your school.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“They told me if I made contact, I could lead danger straight back to you,” Jesse said. “I was seventeen. I believed every word. Maybe I was right to believe it then. I don’t know anymore.”
Jesse turned eighteen three weeks after prom.
By then, he had already been gone long enough for the search to become national news, long enough for our mother to stop sleeping, long enough for our father to start driving the roads at night.
That was when the temporary hiding became something more permanent.
“They put papers in front of me after my birthday,” Jesse said. “I barely understood half of them. They told me I was legally an adult now. They told me contact with my family was my choice, but they also told me every call, every letter, every familiar address could expose all of you.”
