According to the time stamp she’d posted the selfie, taken in theback of the motel, when Parker was in the shower. So her errand was about more than just scoring a breakfast menu.
The picture was an uncharacteristically smiling face, behind which was the water tower with part of the name of a nearby town visible. Thompson Hills. It would take anyone with half a brain and access to Google no time at all to figure out where they were.
Parker had barked a scream and leapt up, scattering food, spilling coffee.
“We’re leaving. Now!”
“What?”
She had shut off and pocketed her daughter’s phone.
“Hey, that’s mine.”
Parker flung their computers and some clothes into their bags.
“What’s wrong?” the girl had wailed. “I don’t want to leave!”
She had gripped Hannah by the arm. “Now.” The word was an enraged shout.
There would have been something about her mother’s unhinged expression that rattled the girl. She didn’t nod, didn’t say a word, just grabbed the luggage and pushed out the door, ahead of Parker. Their bags were not even fully zipped up. Toiletries and a half-dozen articles of clothing were left behind. Another silly Disney show was on a TV screen too big for the room.
Now Parker pushed the accelerator hard and hit seventy-six in a seventy zone, wishing to do ninety, but she could not risk getting pulled over.
She muttered, “Did it not occur to you that he’s checking social media? That he could scan for ‘Hannah’? And ‘Mer’? How stupid could you be?”
They drove in silence. The girl was staring defiantly out the window.
About five miles from the motel, Parker skidded to a stop on the shoulder. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the girl’s phone.Hannah lunged for it and her mother lifted an arm to block her. It was the first painful contact between the two of them since a two-year-old Hannah punched her in the lip reaching for her necklace.
“Stop it!” Parker raged and her daughter sat back, fuming. Parker knew the PIN and soon the phone was live. She flipped through the apps. No Facebook or Twitter. Just the new Instagram.
“Password.”
When the girl didn’t answer immediately, she asked again, in a threatening tone.
The girl gave it to her. Parker deleted the account and tapped the phone to sleep in airplane mode once more.
“Christ.”
She now skidded back onto the asphalt and sped up. Her daughter was not, of course, careless at all. What she’d done was calculated. Shewantedher father to know where they were. She knew he was checking for their names. So she’d left him what was, in effect, a coded message: Come and find us, without saying so specifically.
Deniability.
“Your father wants to hurt me. Do you understand?”
“You don’t—”
“Do you understand?”
“You don’t know him. Why do I have to keep telling you that?” Hannah was now sobbing. What was the most painful component of her sorrow? Her mother’s anger or the loss of a digital device?
Another few miles streaked by. Parker began to calm.
And she realized that this was her own fault. The overprotective mother had kept the girl far from the legal proceedings following November 15. She’d done the same yesterday, not sharing Jon’s true mission.
“Han, I wasn’t honest with you. I didn’t tell you everything.”
The girl continued to stare out the window.