Chapter 5 5

Karen walked until her legs burned. She ended up in a small park near the Flatiron District. The wind was biting, whipping her coat around her legs.

She sat on a bench and pulled out her sketchbook.

She needed to create. It was the only way to silence the noise in her head. Her gloved hand held the paper down while her right hand flew across the page. Charcoal lines intersected, forming a sharp, aggressive structure. It was a fortress. A place where no one could hurt her.

She was so focused she didn't notice the traffic light turn red on the street in front of her.

A black Maybach purred to a halt at the crosswalk.

Inside, Isaiah King was rubbing his temples. A headache had been throbbing behind his eyes since the morning meeting.

He glanced out the window, bored.

His gaze swept over the park. The bare trees. The pigeons. The woman on the bench.

He froze.

The curve of her neck. The way her hair fell over her shoulder as she leaned over a sketchbook. The intensity of her posture.

Karen.

His heart hammered against his ribs.

No. It couldn't be. Karen was... gone. She was out of prison, he knew that, but his lawyers said she had vanished into the cracks of the city. She wouldn't be sitting in a park in Manhattan sketching. She was a murderer. Murderers didn't create art.

The light turned green.

"Sir?" the driver asked.

"Drive," Isaiah said, his voice rough. He didn't look back. It was a ghost. Just a ghost.

Karen looked up as the black car sped away. She saw the exhaust fumes swirl in the cold air. She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind.

She packed her things. She couldn't stay here.

When she got back to the basement, Hoke was on the floor with a stolen laptop. It was an ancient brick of a machine Karen had salvaged from a dumpster and fixed up.

"What are you doing?" Karen asked, hanging up her coat.

Hoke slammed the lid shut. "Nothing. Playing Minesweeper."

He was lying. Hoke was a terrible liar.

"Hoke."

"I was just... looking."

Karen walked over and opened the laptop. The screen flickered to life. A browser window was open.

The search bar read: Isaiah King.

Images of Isaiah filled the screen. Isaiah at galas. Isaiah at groundbreakings. Isaiah at the funeral.

"Why?" Karen whispered.

Hoke looked up at her. His dark eyes were defiant. "I saw him on the news. The man you got scared of."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small mirror. He held it up next to the screen, comparing his own reflection to the man in the pixels.

"It's him, isn't it?" Hoke said. "He's my father."

Karen snatched the laptop away. "No! You don't have a father. Your father is dead."

"He looks like me," Hoke insisted. "Or I look like him. Did he make us live here? Is he the bad man?"

"Stop it!" Karen screamed.

She terrified him. She saw it in his flinch. She immediately dropped to her knees and pulled him into her arms.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Hoke. Just... please. Don't look for him. He's dangerous. If he finds us, he'll take you away from me."

Hoke stiffened in her arms. He didn't cry. He just nodded against her shoulder.

"Okay, Mommy. I won't look."

But in his mind, Hoke had already made a connection. Isaiah King. Dangerous. Enemy.

The next day, desperation drove Karen to the temp agency on 42nd Street. They didn't ask for background checks. They just needed bodies.

"Mascot duty," the clerk said, handing her a slip. "Shopping mall. Ten bucks an hour. Cash."

Karen took it.

Two hours later, she was sweating inside a giant, plush bear costume. The head was heavy, smelling of old sweat and disinfectant. She was standing in front of the King Plaza Mall-Isaiah's flagship property.

The irony was bitter. The woman who used to design the interiors of these buildings was now a dancing bear outside the doors.

She waved at children. She handed out flyers for a toy store sale. Through the mesh of the bear's mouth, she watched the wealthy women of New York walk by in their designer coats.

She saw a woman she used to know-a socialite named Serena. Serena looked right through the bear, disgusted by the "low-life" inside the suit.

Karen felt invisible. And for the first time in five years, safe.