“Mom?” Leo whispered, his fingers digging into my arm. “Did that man hurt you?”
“No, sweetie,” I said, my hand closing over the cool linen in my lap. “He just dropped something.”
I held the handkerchief beneath the edge of the seat, unfolding it with my thumb. Inside the fold was a small, torn piece of yellow paper with three lines of hurried pencil writing.
Do not trust anyone in Arthur’s house, the note read. They know you are coming, and they have the papers ready.
The handwriting was sharp, the letters leaning forward as if they had been written on a moving dashboard. My thumb rubbed the edge of the paper, the rough pencil lead smudging against my skin.
I looked back toward the front of the bus, but the stranger was gone. The bus had slowed down near a crossroad, and the driver had opened the door to let him out onto the gravel shoulder of Route 2.
I watched through the window as his dark canvas jacket disappeared into the shadow of the pine trees lining the highway.
