Nobody moved.

Rain battered the station windows while the silence inside became almost unbearable.

Travis forced a laugh.

“You don’t know who you’re interfering with.”

Brick remained on one knee beside Caleb, careful not to crowd us.

“No,” he answered quietly.

“I know exactly what I’m interfering with.”

He looked at one of the riders.

“Duke.”

A gray-bearded biker immediately pulled out his phone.

“Already checking.”

Another rider walked calmly toward the register.

“Ma’am, would you lock the front door?”

The cashier hesitated.

Travis flashed the badge again.

“I’m ordering you to cooperate with law enforcement.”

Brick finally stood.

“If you’re law enforcement…”

He pointed toward Travis’s chest.

“…tell me your dispatch frequency.”

Travis blinked.

“What?”

“Your radio frequency.”

Silence.

Brick had spent twenty-seven years protecting federal buildings before retiring. He had testified in court more times than he could remember.

Real officers answered questions.

Fake ones became angry.

Travis chose anger.

“You think you’re smart?”

Brick shrugged.

“I know enough.”

Duke looked up from his phone.

“No Amber Alert.”

Another rider spoke.

“No kidnapping bulletin.”

A third added quietly,

“No stolen vehicle report either.”

The room changed.

Customers who had been backing away now stared at Travis instead of me.

The cashier slowly stepped away from the register.

Brick folded his arms.

“Last chance.”

“Show the warrant.”

Travis reached inside his jacket again.

This time everyone tensed.

Instead of paperwork…

He pulled out a folded photograph.

He tossed it onto the counter.

It showed Nathan standing beside me.

Holding Caleb.

Taken months earlier.

“That’s his family.”

Brick barely glanced at it.

“A family photo isn’t a warrant.”

Travis’s jaw tightened.

“She’s unstable.”

Brick nodded slowly.

“So your evidence is…”

He tapped the picture.

“…Christmas?”

A nervous laugh escaped one customer.

Then another.

Travis realized the room was slipping away from him.

He took a step toward me.

“Hannah.”

His voice suddenly softened.

“You know Derek—I mean Nathan—is worried.”

He caught himself too late.

Brick heard it.

“So which is it?”

Brick asked.

“Nathan?”

“Or Derek?”

The wrong name hung in the air.

Travis had accidentally revealed he wasn’t speaking from any official report.

He was speaking for the man chasing us.

Brick’s expression hardened.

“You almost had me.”

At that moment, headlights flashed through the rain.

Two county sheriff’s cruisers pulled into the parking lot.

Travis smiled.

“Perfect timing.”

But the smile disappeared almost immediately.

The deputies walked past him.

Straight toward Brick.

One of them removed his hat.

“Mr. Sullivan.”

Brick nodded.

“Evening, Sheriff.”

Sheriff Coleman’s eyes shifted toward Travis.

“I’ve never seen this deputy before.”

Brick answered quietly.

“You haven’t…”

“…because he isn’t one.”

The sheriff turned.

“Badge.”

Travis hesitated.

That was enough.

Within seconds two deputies had him against the snack aisle.

The badge came off.

It belonged to another county.

Reported missing nearly six months earlier.

The gun he carried wasn’t department-issued.

Neither was the radio clipped beneath his jacket.

As deputies searched him, they recovered zip ties…

Two prepaid phones…

And photographs of me entering three different shelters during the previous week.

The sheriff looked at me gently.

“Ma’am…”

“Has someone been tracking you?”

I couldn’t answer.

I simply nodded.

Brick looked toward the rain outside.

“This isn’t over.”

The sheriff agreed.

“No.”

“It isn’t.”

Then one deputy opened Travis’s truck.

Inside they found something that changed everything.

A folder labeled…

BROOKS RECOVERY.

And inside it…

There weren’t photographs of one woman.

There were eleven.

Every one of them had disappeared from domestic violence shelters over the previous four years.

Nathan hadn’t just been hunting me.

He’d been running a business.

End of Part 2