So, I went from sleeping in an over-cab bunk to sleeping in a guest room in a Nevada mansion. And let me tell you—I got much better sleep on the narrow strip of crackling cushions, smashed against the windshield in the snout of the RV, than I did on the king-size bed in the mansion.
For starters, the room wasn’t the most welcoming. The lace-trimmed bedsheets were so ornate that it almost felt sacrilegious to sleep on them. Also, one whole wall was some kind of elaborate modern-art piece with just enough geometric craziness to make me dizzy. And worst of all, every time I did manage to slip into a twilit sleep, I had nightmares.
Mom collapsed in that seedy apartment bathroom, needle burrowed into her arm, just as she’d been on that horrible day I found her.
Gran stroking her worn Bible, eyes clouded with an invisible burden.
Jaz reaching for me, lips moving in some kind of urgent warning I couldn’t hear.
Kason’s face dropping into shadow as he walked away from me into a darkness unbroken by lines of light.
And every time I’d jerk into consciousness, away from the people who weren’t there, I could hear the muffled voices of the people who were. The hushed tones of people who are arguing but trying to do it without waking up anyone else. Finally, I couldn’t bear the not-knowing. Gran hated eavesdroppers, but I slipped out of bed and crept just to the doorway of my room.
“—can’t stay here indefinitely.” Monica’s voice. “It’s not fair to Sophie. Or to me.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” My father. “She’s my daughter.”
“A daughter you haven’t felt the need to claim for eighteen years. If you were going to do the right thing, you should have done it then.”
I held my breath, leaning into the silence before my father’s response. But then I heard him sigh. “I need to go to bed, Monica. I have to preach tomorrow and then leave for the revival. Why don’t we deal with this when I get back?”
Deal with this. Words that might apply to a termite infestation or a broken appliance or some other wearyingly unfortunate burden.
I had that inner-cold feeling again.
Despite all of that, I—finally—sank deeply into sleep right before dawn. And when I finally jerked awake, the sun was splashing across the quilt. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, feeling more tired than I had before I tried to sleep, and glanced at the clock on the nightstand.
11:08.
Eleven o’clock in the morning? I couldn’t remember ever sleeping that late unless I was sick or had pulled an all-nighter studying. Where was everyone else? Probably at church. I’d missed church. Great.
I wandered into the adjoining bathroom. In the scallop-edged mirror, my reflection watched me with worried eyes. As if the girl in the mirror needed me to reassure her. To promise her that we were okay, that we had made it home, that we belonged.
I looked away. I couldn’t promise any of that.
I really wished, also, that I had different clothes—clothes that didn’t resemble a collision between summer camper and homeless person. I finally settled on a feminine-cut shirt and my longest pair of denim shorts.
The house was silent, holding its breath, as I crept downstairs and found the kitchen after only two wrong turns. An orange Post-It flapped from the refrigerator. Unsigned, but I recognized that scratchy handwriting from the letter I’d carried all these miles.
Jenna,
At church. Back soon. Help yourself.
Okay, then.
I folded the Post-It, tucked it in my pocket.
The refrigerator was one of those shiny stainless-steel models that open soundlessly and glow with cool fluorescence inside. It was overflowing with more items than I’d have thought necessary for only three people. Jaz would have had a field day cooking in this kitchen.
The Post-It notwithstanding, I felt weird taking someone else’s food, so I stuck with nothing more than a little single-serve container of yogurt. I wasn’t that hungry anyway. Hadn’t been since I’d first seen that TV screen in Reno.
I ate the yogurt quickly, threw the container away, and stood still for a moment. The silence pressed heavy on my eardrums. I shook my head and wandered down the hall to the living room. It looked staged. Like a glossy Better Homes & Gardens cover. Furniture creatively angled, fireplace clearly just for show, a bowl of glass marbles next to an ornate silver cross. Magazines were fanned in display on the coffee table. I glanced at the covers without touching them. MISSION UPDATE: THE GOSPEL IN THE MIDDLE EAST. GO + GIVE. EVANGELISM TECHNIQUES FOR A NEW GENERATION. POLITICAL CLIMATE AND…
Again—I don’t know why—I thought of that homeless camp. Why was my father reading about doing the Lord’s work on the other side of the globe when he would have only had to walk three blocks to start making a difference?
I sighed and stepped back. Brooklyn would probably be thrilled with an opulent place like this. But I just wished I were back in the stale air of the RV. I wished I were watching Jaz draw on her arm and listening to Kason talk UFO’s. I wished I’d never had to watch the light die in Kason’s eyes.
And I really wished I hadn’t been the cause of it.
I thought about sitting on the couch, but it gave me a don’t you dare vibe, so instead I circled the living room, studying the various objects. One whole shelf of the lefthand cabinet was a stacked display of photo frames. Snapshots of the lives of the people whose lines were drawn with mine. My father and Monica in a wedding photo. Monica sitting with a young Sophie on her lap. My father holding Sophie’s hand and pointing at something. The three of them together, snuggled on a blanket at the beach. I studied that one the longest, trying to decide where I would have fit. If I would have fit.
It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon, and I was back in the guest room, trying to read more of The Horse and His Boy, when I heard the car pull up. In a few moments, voices reentered the house. I waited about ten minutes before I came down.
Monica was standing in the living room, talking on her cell phone in a hushed voice. Her back was to me, but from the hall, I could hear her words. “—just shows up like this and expects us to—I mean, it’s not that I’m blaming her, but still—”
My face was still burning as I ducked into the kitchen, where my father was sitting at the kitchen table, dividing his attention between a sandwich and his cell phone. An empty fast-food wrapper was on the table beside him. He glanced up when I came in. “Well. Hi.”
“Hi.”
Both of us balancing awkwardly on either end of the greeting. Nowhere to go from here.
He looked down and took another bite of the sandwich. “Do you want anything to eat? We picked up lunch on the way home, but—”
“I’m okay. I got something this morning after I saw your note.”
“All right.”
Silence dropped between us. Not the kind of comfortable space that fit nicely between Kason and me, but the kind of prickly ominous calm that precedes a storm.
“So, I’ll have to leave again soon. The evening service is at seven. I like to get there early.”
“Okay.” I shifted nervously. “I’m sorry I missed church this morning. But I’m going this evening.”
“Oh.” The syllable sounded less than delighted. “Sure you want to?”
“Yes.” I could see how his eyes had moved from my hennaed arm to my denim shorts. My face flared hotter. “This—these clothes are all I have with me. I’m—”
“No, no, that’s fine.” His face was still hesitant. “Um, so—I need to talk to you about something.”
The same thing he’d started to say when we arrived yesterday. My stomach twisted just a little. “All right.”
Before he could finish his thought, Monica marched into the kitchen and headed straight for the refrigerator, ignoring her husband. “Hi.” Her greeting to me was flat. Whatever courtesy she’d been able to scrape up last night was wearing thin.
“Hi.” I felt like shrinking beneath her pinched-brow gaze. Who had she been talking to? Her mom? Her sister?
Maybe her best friend. Maybe someone like Jaz.
My father cleared his throat. “So, Mon—”
I suddenly imagined a different scene. One where my parents were married and my mom never listened to the siren-song of the drugs and Eva was the name that rolled off my father’s lips.
Maybe Monica was seeing that too.
My father was still talking. “I have to leave in—” he flipped his wrist, glanced at his shiny Rolex—“about two hours. Are you and Sophie—”
“We’ll leave later.” Her voice was still tight. She turned on the faucet, washed her hands.
“What about—” He glanced at me, then back at her. “Can Jenna ride with you two?”
She didn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t hear. Maybe the faucet was too loud.
I looked at my father. “I can ride with you when you leave.” I didn’t want to be left in the charged atmosphere of the house, waiting for Monica to like me and fielding Sophie’s questions. Plus, maybe it would give me some good time with my dad. Time in which the tension between us would relax and he would talk to me, really talk to me, and I would finally feel as though the answers I’d received fit the questions I’d been asking.
“You sure?” He crumpled the empty bag and raised his eyebrows. “It’s going to be awhile before the service starts. I have to get there in time to go over the final preparations with the elders, lead the prayer meeting beforehand.”
“I’m sure.” Couldn’t he see that I didn’t mind any of that? That I was only desperate to be his daughter?
Two hours later, I was beside my father as we prepared to leave. He looked at Monica. “Bye, honey.”
She leaned against the counter and studied us for just a moment. Her face held an expression too weary to be anger, and for some kind of reason I felt that odd twinge of guilt again. “Bye.”
#
As soon as I settled into the bucket seat of the BMW, my father cleared his throat. “Your grandmother called me.”
My hands tensed on my seatbelt.
“She wants you to call her.”
“Okay.” It was the easiest answer.
Two blocks went by while I waited for him to break the silence.
Finally I fumbled for something to say. “Your, um, your church is really nice.”
“It’s been the work of many years.” He changed lanes without using his turn signal. “It was the fastest-growing church my parents ever planted. After they went overseas, I became the pastor.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Six years. The elders weren’t sure at first. Thought I was was too young—I was thirty, at the time. But our attendance has continued to rise, and we’ve been able to make several expansions.”
“That’s nice.” But again, shallow answers, skimming across the surface of all I really wanted to know. I touched my necklace and took a deep breath, preparing to dive. “You wrote a letter to my mom. When you sent her the meteorite.”
“I did?” He darted me a quick glance. “Seems like I remember something like that.”
“You said—in the letter—” I was pleading with my father, begging him to still be the boy who’d written those words. “You said that you were looking for answers.”
“I probably did.” He squinted as if driving into the sun, even though the afternoon shadows stretched ahead of us. “I thought a lot about that, back then.”
“So—now that you’re a pastor, I guess you found them?”
“Them?”
“Answers.”
“Oh—” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. For a moment, he just looked like any normal, weary guy. Far more weatherbeaten and far less confident than he’d appeared on TV. “Answers.” There was a faint edge under the word. A resentment, maybe. “Answers are tricky things.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re—well, sometimes I think we just ask too big of questions.”
“So—” I sorted through my thoughts. “You don’t understand God?”
The undercurrent of bitterness beneath his laugh surprised me. “No.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I do not understand God.”
“You preach about Him all the time.”
“Just because I say—” He seemed to catch himself, to rein his words back within the bounds. “It’s just—pastoring is a job. Like any job, it has its ups and downs. I’m grateful to be part of the Lord’s work.” He said it with the automatic monotone of an employee reciting a company tagline. “But it definitely doesn’t mean I never have questions.”
It was disorienting, sort of. To realize his ground was as shaky as my own. “Do you believe in the lines of light?”
His brow furrowed. “The what?”
“Like—patterns. Constellations. Stories.” That sounded weirdly random. I fumbled for an explanation, a way to package a belief into words. “Like—like God takes all our actions and—and creates something He’s planned.”
“Oh.” He nodded now. “The principle of reaping and sowing. Yes. God holds us accountable.” He was slipping back into his preacher voice. “Our actions have consequences.”
Which wasn’t at all what I was trying to say, but something kept me from asking him more. Maybe the way he’d glanced at me when he’d spoken of consequences.
I did not want to be a consequence.
We were turning into the driveway of the church, coming down to the crowded parking lot. The clock was running out on this conversation. I shifted, trying to find something to say, to hold his attention just a little longer. “Are all these people already here for the service?”
“No. These are elders and staff. Production crew, lighting, sound—it takes a village to put something like this together.” He pulled into his RESERVED FOR PASTOR parking spot and turned off the car. “All right. I’ve got to first have a word with our donations director, and then I need to meet with the elders—” He glanced at me uneasily. “If you want to wait in the car—”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll come on in.” I wanted to see all I could of my father’s world. And hopefully have a chance to talk to him more. To see why the lines of light didn’t seem to be drawing between us.
“All right.” He turned and headed for the building without waiting for me. I scrambled out of the car and jogged after him, catching up just as we passed through the glass doors. What a difference a few hours could make. The day before, I’d come through those doors still holding all my questions. Now I’d traded them in for answers.
So why did the answers feel even heavier?
As soon as we entered the foyer, a guy in the all-black uniform of a stagehand hurried up. “Pastor Harmon, we need to discuss the last worship song quickly. Would ‘Behold All Joy’ or ‘Blessed Be’ tie more nicely into your sermon?”
My father rubbed his chin. “Either would work…but ‘Behold All Joy’ is faster-paced. Let’s try that one this week. Oh, and make sure the lighting crew knows to keep the color scheme consistent. The blue background is fine while I’m preaching, but they need to be sure to mix the colors during worship.”
“I’ll tell them. You know, though, we’ve had trouble with the lighting system. We really need to replace the pixel tube lights. The colors would be a lot less grainy, a lot smoother.”
“I know.” My father sighed. “Well, I’ll announce the need again during offering. Oh, and what song is planned for then?”
“‘Grateful Hearts.’” The guy grinned. “Can’t hurt to remind everyone that the Lord loves a cheerful giver.”
“He’s not the only one.” My father laughed and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Good work as always, Dexter. Sound check in thirty minutes?”
Something hesitant tunneled through my stomach. I’d never heard Jaz and Kason talk about church this way. Like a business venture instead of a belief system. But then, neither of them were in the position my father was in. Didn’t he have to consider all these details?
Pastoring is a job…
While my father continued shaking hands and trading hellos with his staff, I busied myself examining the contents of a narrow table on the other side of the foyer. Flyers emblazoned with the words WELCOME THE HARVEST were fanned around a floral arrangement. The vase was engraved with the Lord’s Prayer. I traced my finger over the familiar lettering.
Our Father, Who art…
“Jenna!” My father was suddenly beside me again, clasping my shoulder and nudging me toward a pair of double doors at the side of the foyer. “Do you want to go on in the sanctuary and grab a seat?”
“Oh—” What I really wanted to do was stay with my father, especially since we still had a whole hour before service. But— “Okay. Where do Monica and Sophie usually sit?”
“Well—” He paused by the doors, his expression tightening again. “The front row, but—you might not want to sit there.”
“Um—how come?”
“Just—” He made a nervous gesture. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, being that close, I mean.”
I didn’t usually like the front row of a church—he’d guessed right there—but I’d tolerate it if it meant sitting with the rest of my family. “It’s okay. I’ll sit with them.”
“Jenna.”
Something about the way he said my name made me cold inside. And suddenly I had the feeling that I was about to hear what he’d tried to tell me all weekend.
“Jenna, I need you to not sit on the front row.”
“Um—okay.” I searched his face for an explanation. Would it make him nervous? Distract him?
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s just—well—” He gestured at me vaguely. “You look—very much like me.”
For the briefest moment, I let the warmth of that thought glow in my chest. Then confusion clicked in. “So—”
“So—” He glanced at the table, straightened the vase of flowers. “If you sit with Monica and Sophie, people may think that—well, they may ask questions.”
It was like the held breath right after a lightning bolt. When you’ve seen the heavens split but you’re still waiting for the thunder.
“And if people ask questions, it will get back to the elder board, and—” He coughed out a nervous laugh. “It’s not that I won’t tell people ultimately, of course—and it’s not your fault, but—right now, I just can’t have this kind of scandal.”
Scandal.
That’s when the thunder finally rolled, when reality cracked all the sky around me.
No wonder my father had hoped I didn’t come to church. No wonder he’d suggested I wait in the car. No wonder he’d been trying to hide me since I arrived.
My father was ashamed of me.
“You mean—but—” Denial roared in my ears.
“Jenna, now, please understand.” His tone was halfway to desperate. “I’m doing the Lord’s work here. I can’t lose this—” his hand swept around the church—“just because I made a mistake before.”
Mistake. That word again.
I shook my head, the thunder still vibrating inside me. “Wait. Please—”
“Pastor Harmon!”
We both turned. A man with a tailored suit and white goatee was hurrying across the sanctuary toward us. “Pastor Harmon, there you are!”
“Elder Strachan!” And like a magic trick, my father transformed back into the man I’d seen on TV. Flashing smile and ironclad confidence. He shook the older man’s hand with a Sunday sincerity. “I was just getting ready to find you for our prayer meeting.”
“Yes sir, we need to ask the Lord to bless what we’re doing today, and—” The man’s brows suddenly arched as he glanced at me. “Oh. And who is—”
Before my numbed mind could scrape up a response, my father’s hand was on my shoulder. Commanding. Reminding. Silencing.
“This is Jenna, a friend of Sophie’s. She’s spending the weekend with us and decided to visit the church.”
The elder smiled. “Well, well, good to have you in the house of the Lord this evening!”
The house of the Lord. The Lord was not a hospitable host.
“Let me speak with Mr. Strachan, Jenna.” How did my father lie so well? How could there be no trace of guilt under his plastic persona? “See you in a moment.” And with that, he fell into step beside the elder, heading toward a hallway across the foyer.
Disbelief throbbed. That was it? He was just going to walk away? To go join the people who saw him through a haze of holiness? To ask God to sprinkle some success on the heaping platter of hypocrisy he was serving up today?
The stupid vase of stupid flowers was still in front of me. The stupid words of the stupid prayer.
Our Father—Our Father—Our Father—
I guess what happened next was just all the hurt jerking loose, all the anger stinging me hot back to life. Before I could remember to be the good girl I’d been all my life, something wild and wounded came over me. And next thing I knew, I’d shoved that table.
Everything toppled. The table banged onto its side, the flyers scattered like frightened birds across the foyer, and the vase shattered with a crack like thunder, murky water and wilting flowers expanding beneath the broken pieces.
My father turned.
And for just a moment, I saw it all in his eyes. Despair. Guilt. Shame. Remorse.
But not courage.
Not courage enough to walk across the shattered pieces between us.
The elder was pointing his finger, saying something, but I wasn’t listening. Once I realized my father wasn’t going to move, I did. I stepped over the mess I’d made, over the soggy WELCOME brochures, over the sharp-edged pieces of the broken prayer. And then I walked across the foyer and out the door.
Out of the Father’s house.
#
I don’t know how far I walked while all the hundred splinters of my heart stabbed at the inside of my chest. Part of me was still holding to the hazy afterimage of what I’d hoped for. My father walking across the mess between us. Finally, finally, finally taking me in his arms and telling me he loved me, he was glad he was my dad, he was—
Maybe reunions like that only happened in Narnia.
I’d reached the end of my search, and the meteorite had burnt itself into ashes. The answers hurt more than the questions. I couldn’t call Gran. I wouldn’t call Kason.
Finally I knew where I needed to go first. It took another hour of walking and more than a few wrong turns, but I finally ended up back at my father’s house. Monica tried to seem properly regretful when I told her I had to leave and collected the rest of my stuff, but the relief showed through her polite goodbye. Sophie seemed as unfazed by my departure as she had been by my appearance. I didn’t look back as I headed down the sidewalk. They’d all be better off now that I was gone. Able to return to their undisturbed lives.
Carrying the duffel bag was awkward with my backpack already slung over my shoulders. But even heavier than my luggage were the doubts and fears crushing down on my back. I had no place to go and nothing but blankness ahead of me. I’d burned every bridge behind me, and now I was trapped on the other side of the Continental Divide.
Stupid. How had I, a straight-A student, been so dumb? I’d left a trail of stupid choices behind me. Leaving Mount Victory…thinking I could make friends…chasing down my father…letting Kason kiss me. I brushed off the tingly feeling the memory brought me. Okay, that stupid thing I would do again, given the chance.
Without consulting my brain, my feet led me back to the church. I slipped into the shadows beneath the HARVEST HILL INTERNATIONAL sign and stared at the parking lot crammed with cars, the people streaming into the building like bees into a hive. Bring in the harvest, for sure. And their tithe checks.
The looming cross by the entrance slanted its shadow at me like an accusing finger. I turned and walked away. Away from the father. Away from the Father.
The sun was sinking fast, dusk pooling under the trees. I kept going, weaving down side streets until I was three blocks away, where the air was smudged with the odors of garbage and traffic exhaust and cigarette smoke. I stayed in the shadows and studied the homeless camp the Uber driver had spoken of. Among the makeshift tarp shelters and the fraying tents were discarded husks of humanity, squatting on the edges of sidewalks and dangling cigarettes from unsteady fingers and watching the world with a mix of suspicion and sorrow.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars balanced on the budget of Harvest Hill? Why had none of that money made it three blocks away?
But parked just in front of an obnoxiously large dumpster was an orange van with navy lettering. And a ragged crowd was rapidly collecting around the vehicle.
I slipped closer, still staying at the fringes of the dwindling light, until I could make out the words on the van: JESUS LOVES YOU.
The smug holiness of my father’s church flashed to mind, but I couldn’t help but notice that the folks standing by this van were different. They weren’t peering down from a platform of purity; instead, they were laughing, chatting with the people who lived there. As if it were a big block party, as if they’d simply come to spend an evening with friends instead of make a big show of righteousness. They were handing out some kind of food, passing it around.
“Hey! Hey there!”
It took a minute for me to realize that one of the guys was waving at me, beckoning me closer. My first instinct was to step back and let the shadows swallow me, but instead I shuffled into the crowd and made my way to the food line.
“Hi there.” He looked like the furthest thing from a church guy, with spiky black hair and a rock band T-shirt and expander rings in his earlobes. He held out some kind of plastic-wrapped food in tattooed hands. “Would you like one?”
“Oh, uh, I’m not—” Well, but I sort of was homeless, at least for now, right? Plus, the roasted-meat smell was making my stomach pinch. I swallowed. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, of course.” He flashed me a smile and handed over the food. “Anything we can pray with you about tonight?”
Our Father, Who art in Heaven. In Heaven. Not on earth. Not with me now.
Our Father.
Father.
“No.” My prayers had broken to pieces on the floor of a megachurch three blocks away.
“You sure?”
The compassion in his face reminded me, for just a moment, of Kason. “I—the lines of light.” I backed away, unable to hold his eyes. “Pray that I find the lines of light.”
I waited until I was back on the main road, walking away from the camp, before I unwrapped the plastic. A soft-shelled taco—still warm—waited inside. I took a bite, letting the spices dance on my tongue, and realized I was hungry for the first time since I’d left the RV.
The RV. How far had the others made it by now? They should have crossed into California yesterday. They might be already at Big Sur, for all I knew. What was Kason finding each night with his telescope? Was Jaz still looking for rocks?
I took another bite of the taco and thought about the inked hands of the guy who’d given it to me. The unquestioning welcome in his eyes.
Anything we can pray for you about?
Our Father, Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be…
So Who was God, really? The Father Who turned his back and drove me from His house? The Judge Who frowned with rigid rules and demanded painful perfection from His people?
Or…was God the One Who counted sand and stars, Who doled out unconditional love on a Nevada street corner?
I knew what Kason would say.
But he wasn’t there.
And suddenly, I guess the ache of empty hit me. I hadn’t cried all day. But suddenly, like the tide coming back in, the tears started coming. And all I could feel was this sudden need for the constellations to come clear again.
And it was that desperation, I guess, that made me pull my phone from my pocket. I’d turned it off once I arrived at Harvest Hill, but now I powered it back on, ignoring the missed calls and messages and swiping up to the only name I was crying for.
One ring.
Two rings.
He wouldn’t answer. Of course not.
Three rings.
I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to talk.
And then the fourth ring cut off halfway, and Kason’s voice wrapped around my name. “Jenna! There you are!”
I blinked. “W-what?”
“I’ve been trying to get you all day. Haven’t you seen my calls?”
Something clenched tight inside me released, just a little. Kason was talking to me. He hadn’t hung up on me. And he’d been trying to reach me. “I’ve had my phone turned off. I didn’t know you called. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” His voice was patient as always, but there was an undercurrent of something else. Worry, maybe. “So, you’re not at your dad’s church.”
Just the word dad made my stomach roil. “No. I’m not.” Only then did I consider his statement. “Wait, how do you know?”
“Because I’ve sat through all three of their services today, and I haven’t seen you.” I could hear the shuffling of a crowd around him. “Third one just now let out. These people are in no hurry to get done with their services, let me tell you.”
“Wait—you’re here?”
“I’m in Blakely, yes.” His voice was still so calm. As if this were a perfectly normal place for him to be.
I shook my head. What had they spiked that taco with? “You’re really here?”
“Yes.” He laughed a little. “I’m really here.”
The tears welled up again. I hadn’t been forgotten. Kason was here and he would find me and he would make it all, somehow, okay. “But—why are you here?”
“Because you are.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond. “Where are you?”
Where are you? The question was like a flashlight cutting through the dark, opening a path to lead me back to life and light. I looked around for a landmark. “Um—outside a big hotel. I think it’s an Embassy. At the corner of—Silver Street.”
“All right.” His voice muffled for a moment, then came back clear. “Stay put, Jenna. I’m on my way.”