Chapter 124 Going After Her

Chapter 124 Going After Her
Jake POV

Daniel Ford is still standing on my porch when I finally pull the door open all the way, and up close he doesn't look dangerous. He looks exhausted. Older than I expected, eyes lined with something that might be grief, might be guilt, might be both tangled together after sixteen years of carrying whatever secret brought him here.
"Jake." Maren's voice, tight behind me. "Let him in. We need to hear this."
I step back, and Daniel walks in slow, careful, like he's aware how much this house has already been through this week and doesn't want to add to the damage by moving too fast.
"You said Penny's not the only one in danger," I say, no patience left for small talk. "Explain that. Now."
"I don't know everything," Daniel says, sitting heavy on the couch when Maren gestures for him to. "But I know your mother figured out something before she died that scared her badly enough to reach out to me after sixteen years of silence. She told me somebody close to your family had been quietly moving money for years, using the company as cover, and she'd just found proof."
"My dad," I say flatly.
"No." Daniel shakes his head. "That's the thing, Jake. Your mother didn't think it was your dad. She thought your dad was covering for someone else the whole time, someone he trusted completely, someone with access to everything. She was trying to figure out who before she," He stops himself, throat working. "Before the accident."
The room tilts under me. "You're saying somebody killed my mom to keep her quiet, and it wasn't my dad who did it."
"I'm saying I think that's possible," Daniel says carefully. "And I'm saying whoever's been sending threatening messages to you and Penny all week, whoever leaked that security footage of Detective Reyes, whoever fed rumors to that girl at your school, that's not some random hacker doing it for fun. That takes access. Real access. To your family, to Penny's file, to police evidence."
My stomach drops through the floor, and that's the exact moment I hear small feet padding down the hallway.
"Jake?" Lily's voice, sleepy and small. "I had a bad dream. Where's Penny?"
I turn fast, heart still hammering from everything Daniel just said, and try to arrange my face into something calm before she sees whatever's actually happening underneath it. "Hey, bug. Penny went home for the night. You want me to tuck you back in?"
"No, I want Penny." Lily's lower lip wobbles, exhaustion and confusion making her more insistent than usual. "She always does the voices for the dinosaur book. You don't do the voices right."
Something in my chest cracks wide open at that, small and stupid and completely devastating all at once. Because Lily's right. Penny does do the voices right. Penny does everything right in this house, the pancake mornings, the dinosaur costume, the bedtime stories, the quiet way she's held this whole family together while I was too busy falling apart to notice how much weight she was carrying too.
I pushed her away tonight. Told myself I was protecting her. And all it actually did was leave this house feeling exactly like it did before she ever moved in, hollow, unfinished, missing the one piece that made it feel like a real home instead of just a place we all happened to sleep.
"Where's Penny, Jake?" Lily asks again, more insistent this time, tears threatening. "Is she coming back?"
I crouch down in front of her, and for the first time tonight I don't force a fake smile onto my face. I let her see something closer to the truth. "I said something dumb tonight, bug. I hurt her feelings, and she went home because of it."
Lily's small face scrunches up, thinking hard. "Then you have to go say sorry. That's what you always tell me to do when I mess up."
Out of the mouths of six-year-olds. She's not wrong. She's exactly, completely right, and hearing my own advice handed back to me by my baby sister is somehow the thing that finally knocks the last of my stubborn fear loose.
"You're right," I say, standing up, resolve settling into my chest for the first time all night. "I have to go get her."
Maren's already moving, scooping Lily up onto her hip. "Go. I've got her. Go fix it, Jake."
I look at Daniel Ford, still sitting on the couch, this stranger who apparently holds pieces of a puzzle none of us understand yet. "Stay here. Don't leave. I need answers from you too, but Penny comes first."
He nods, and I'm out the door before he can say anything else, keys already in my hand, heart pounding with something that finally feels like clarity instead of panic.
The drive to Diana's apartment takes eleven minutes that feel like an hour, every red light an agony, every second replaying the ugly things I said in that kitchen. You should focus on your scholarship instead of my family's mess. God, no wonder she heard it as being pushed out. That's exactly what it was, dressed up as protection.
I'm rehearsing what I'll say the whole drive, how sorry I am, how scared I got, how she's not a burden, how the house feels wrong and empty without her in it, how Lily won't even let anyone else do the dinosaur voices right, when my phone buzzes hard against the passenger seat.
I glance down at a red light, expecting Maren, expecting Daniel, expecting anything except what actually appears on the screen.
A text from Penny herself, sent one minute ago, no explanation attached, just seven words that make my whole body go cold.
Jake, someone's outside my mom's apartment. Watching.
I slam my foot on the gas the second the light turns green, phone clutched in my hand, dialing her number with shaking fingers, praying she picks up before whatever's waiting outside that apartment gets any closer.