9:00 AM.
Abandoned gas station.
Leon parked the beat-up cruiser in front of the convenience store and lit a cigarette.
He didn’t wait long.
Shane’s car rolled up within minutes.
The door opened, Shane climbing out first.
He walked around to the passenger side and pulled it open.
Lori stepped out.
She looked worse than the last time Leon had seen her, the red veins in her eyes spread like spiderwebs across the whites.
“Mr.
Leon.” She was clutching a document folder so tight her knuckles had gone pale.
“The discharge paperwork’s all done,” Shane added from his side.
“Hospital’s squared away too.
We can bring Rick out whenever.”
They both looked at Leon like prisoners waiting to be sentenced.
“The money,” Leon said.
Lori held out the folder.
“The house…
we sold it.” Her voice shook.
“It’s all in there.
Cashier’s check, and everything we had saved.
Please.” She swallowed.
“You have to convince him.”
Leon took the folder.
He didn’t open it.
He just weighed it in his palm for a moment, then looked at them both.
“Relax.
He’s an odd man, but there’s nothing money can’t solve in this world.” He let a beat pass.
“Especially for a fugitive.
Money is his lifeline.”
His tone left no room for doubt.
“I’m giving you one hundred percent.”
“One hundred percent…”
Lori repeated the words in a murmur, and then the tears just came, with no warning, like something inside her had simply given way.
Two words, and they were the most beautiful thing she’d heard in months.
Shane put a hand on her shoulder.
He looked at Leon with something too tangled to name.
He knew.
He and Lori were locked to this Asian kid’s operation now, and there was no road back.
He’d had his doubts, plenty of them.
He still wasn’t sure how much of what Leon said was real.
But he knew where Leon worked.
That was something.
And he wanted Rick to wake up more than he’d ever wanted anything.
Even if this was a trap, he’d walk into it anyway.
“What do we do now?” Shane asked.
“Go home.
Wait for my call.” Leon pulled open the car door and dropped into the driver’s seat.
“Before I reach out, don’t come looking for me.
Don’t call.
And don’t go looking for him either.” He turned the key.
“That old man spooks easy.
Any noise at all, and he vanishes.”
He turned the car around and drove.
Two figures, then two shapes, then two blurry points, then nothing.
Leon didn’t go back to the prison.
He drove slow loops through the town nearby.
He needed a place.
Somewhere hidden enough, somewhere he could keep his hand on at all times.
He found it less than five miles from the prison, at the edge of a stretch of woods: a standalone wooden cabin with a handwritten “For Rent” sign nailed to the fence.
The place was old, worn at the edges, but it had a spacious basement and a private yard, and most importantly, it was out of the way.
Leon paid cash and had the keys inside an hour.
Next problem: a nurse.
He couldn’t look after Rick himself.
That would chain him to this cabin entirely, and he had too much else to manage.
He needed someone competent, obedient, and airtight.
He picked up a burner phone and posted a listing on a local jobs board:
Seeking private live-in nurse for long-term bedridden patient.
Basic nursing experience required.
Female preferred.
Compensation: $10,000/month, room and board included.
Work location confidential.
All contact with outside parties strictly prohibited for the duration of employment.
The listing hit the internet like a stone dropped into a pond.
A few ripples, then still.
Ten thousand dollars a month was absurd money for rural Georgia.
But that second clause read like a ransom note from a thriller, and every call Leon got ended the same way: “Are you out of your damn mind?” or “I’m calling the cops” before the line went dead.
He wasn’t worried.
There were always people more desperate than him.
The following afternoon, he set up a meeting at the cheapest motel in town.
He waited thirty-some minutes.
He was starting to think it was another wasted afternoon when the door finally opened.
A slight figure stepped in.
Asian girl, barely looked twenty, wearing a T-shirt washed so many times it had faded to almost white and a pair of worn jeans.
Her skin had the dull, yellowish pallor of someone who hadn’t eaten well in a long time.
Lee Miju.
She was holding a printout of his job listing.
She’d been gripping it so hard her sweat had already wrinkled the edges.
“Hi, I…
I’m here about the job.”
Barely above a whisper.
Leon studied her.
Young, probably a student still.
Her eyes were all nerves and embarrassment.
“Sit.” He gestured at the chair across from him.
She perched on the edge of it like she expected to be asked to leave, and slid her resume across the table.
Lee Miju.
Korean.
Twenty-one.
Nursing intern at a community college.
Leon glanced at it and dropped it back.
“You know the terms.” He leaned back in his chair.
“While you’re working, you don’t leave that house.
No phone.
No internet.
No contact with friends or family.
Anyone you know will think you dropped off the face of the earth.” He held her gaze. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
Lee Miju’s face had gone pale.
Her hands were twisted together in her lap.
“How long…
would it be?”
“No idea,” Leon said flatly.
“Could be a few months.
Could be a year.
Could be longer.”
“That sounds like…” She hesitated.
“Prison.”
“Prison doesn’t pay this well.” The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Ten thousand a month.
Cash.
All you do is keep one person alive.
That’s the whole job.”
The girl went quiet, staring at the table.
The war playing out behind her eyes was obvious.
Doubt, and something else underneath it: the desperate, cornered look of someone with no good options left.
“I need the money,” she said finally, lifting her head.
“I really need it.”
“Why?”
“My mom is sick.” Her eyes went red at the rims.
“Severe diabetic complications.
Early signs of kidney failure.
She needs ongoing treatment, medication, all of it, and it’s expensive.
I’m just an intern, I can’t…” She stopped.
Didn’t finish.
She didn’t have to.
Another person ground down by the ordinary cruelty of the world.
Lee Miju took a breath and straightened slightly.
“I can accept all your conditions.”
A pause.
“But I have one request.”
“Go ahead.”
“My mom.” Her voice dropped, almost pleading.
“Can I bring her with me?
She can’t be left alone, and I’m all she has.
I promise she won’t cause any trouble.
I can take care of her and the patient at the same time.
I swear.”
Leon looked at her.
He hadn’t expected that.
An additional dependent.
A patient who needed ongoing medical care.
Extra cost, extra complication, extra risk.
But then he thought it through.
Wasn’t that a more perfect lock?
Control the mother, and he owned the girl completely.
Others might cut and run when things got bad enough.
She wouldn’t.
He watched her sitting there, ready to sell her freedom for her mother’s sake, and he let the silence stretch.
“Tell me more about your mother’s condition,” Leon said.
“Specifically.”
➤ Next: Tying Up Loose Ends