My throat hurt from trying not to cry.
I thought briefly about going back to Mississippi, to my parents’ place in that poor little town where the roads baked white in summer and the church bell could be heard from three streets over. But my mother’s hands shook now when she poured coffee, and my father’s back had gone bad years earlier. They had no money, no room, and no business taking on another burden.
So I sat there in Atlanta, at a bus station that smelled like diesel and wet concrete, and felt the future narrow around me.
Then headlights cut through the rain.
A beam of bright white light flooded the corner where Zion and I were sitting, and I flinched, lifting one hand to shield my face. The engine that pulled up didn’t sound like a bus or a taxi. It purred. Smooth. Expensive.
A black Cadillac Escalade rolled to a stop in front of the curb, glossy even in the bad weather, absurdly polished for a night like that. The tinted window on the driver’s side lowered slowly, and under the station lights I saw a face I recognized at once and almost didn’t believe.
Jordan.
Sterling’s younger sister.
The last time I had seen her was at the memorial service held after the authorities declared there was no reasonable hope of finding him. Back then she was restless, sarcastic, always dressed like she was halfway out the door, as though the family itself embarrassed her. Celeste used to complain about her nonstop, calling her wild, ungrateful, impossible to control. After Sterling disappeared, Jordan disappeared too. I heard she had left home. Then I stopped hearing anything at all.
Now she was sitting behind the wheel of a luxury SUV in the rain, wearing a dark coat, sharp makeup, and an expression so composed it startled me more than the car.
She took off her sunglasses.
“Get in,” she said.
Her voice was flat, almost cool. Not an invitation. A directive.
I stared at her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Get in.”
I tightened my hold on Zion. Every instinct in me went rigid. “How did you even know I was here?”
Jordan’s face did not change. “Amara, do you want your son sitting in this cold another ten minutes?”
That hit me where my fear lived.
I glanced down at Zion, who looked pale even in sleep, and then back at her. My mind spun through every possibility. Had Celeste called her? Was this another humiliation? Another trap? Jordan had never been close to me. She had barely spoken to me kindly even when Sterling was alive.
Maybe she saw the suspicion in my face, because she exhaled once and said, quieter this time, “I’m not my mother.”
Then she looked straight at me and added, “And I’m not here to hurt you. Get in. There’s something important you need to know.”
I didn’t move.
“About what?”
She held my gaze for one long second.
“About Sterling.”
Something inside me stopped, then lurched.
His name in her mouth after all that time felt like touching a live wire. For three years I had lived in fog and ritual and forced endurance. People had stopped speaking his name in front of me unless they were being careful. But Jordan said it directly, like it still belonged in the room.
My first instinct was not hope. It was pain. Then came hope anyway, that dangerous little thing.
“What about Sterling?” I asked.
“Not here.”
Rain hammered the roof of the SUV. Somewhere across the station a bus door wheezed open.
Jordan leaned across and pushed open the rear door.
“Put Zion in the back. Bring your suitcase. I’ll explain when we get there.”
I had no reason to trust her. But I had even less reason to stay where I was.
I carried Zion to the back seat and laid him gently across the leather bench. He barely stirred. I hauled the soaked suitcase in after him and then slid into the car beside him, every muscle still tight.
The door shut. The outside world disappeared in a rush of warmth and quiet.
Jordan pulled away from the curb without another word.
Atlanta blurred past us through rain-streaked glass. Downtown lights smudged gold and white. The highway signs flashed by in green. Somewhere near Midtown we turned into a district of towers and valet stands and polished lobbies I had only ever passed from a distance. Jordan parked in front of a high-rise with doormen, marble floors, and art that looked expensive on purpose.
She led Zion and me upstairs to an apartment on the twenty-fifth floor.
The place was enormous. Clean lines, pale rugs, a wall of windows looking out over the city, tasteful furniture that probably cost more than anything I had ever owned. It didn’t feel like Jordan at all. Or rather, it felt like a version of Jordan I had never known existed.
She showed me a guest room with crisp sheets and a soft lamp burning by the bed.
“You and Zion can stay here tonight,” she said.
I looked at her. “Why?”
