She decided on a Tuesday.
"I need to go back," Nikki said over breakfast. She said it the way she'd said yes to the trap — flat, final, already decided. "There's things in that house I need. Not his things. Mine."
Max set down his fork. "When."
"Today. Before I talk myself out of it." She looked at him. "Will you come?"
"Try to stop me."
She called the landlord from Max's kitchen, standing at the window with her back to the room. Max only heard her side of it — the long exhale at the start, the parts where her voice went thin, the part where she cried a little and got mad at herself for crying. When she hung up, she stood there a minute with her forehead against the glass.
"She's coming over," Nikki said. "Beth. She — " A breath. "She said she's loved me like a sister since I moved in, and if that bastard ever — " Another breath. "She's bringing boxes."
The house looked smaller than she remembered. That was the first thing. Three months of fear had made it huge in her head — every room a place where something had happened — and now it was just a rental with thin walls and a sagging porch, sitting quiet in the afternoon sun.
Max parked behind her. "You tell me the second you want to leave," he said. "Not the minute. The second."
"I know."
The key still worked. That surprised her — she'd half expected Derek to have changed the locks, but Derek had been too busy hunting her to think about the house. Small mercies.
Inside, it smelled like him. Cigarettes and the particular sour of his aftershave. Her stomach turned over once, hard, and then settled. Max's hand found the small of her back — not pushing, just there.
"Bedroom first," she said.
She worked fast, the way you worked when you were afraid your nerve would go. Clothes — not all of them, just the ones that were hers from before, the ones that didn't have his fingerprints on them. She folded them into boxes with sharp, angry movements.
The jewelry box was on the dresser where it had always been. Cherry wood, the lid inlaid with a bird. Her mother had given it to her two Christmases before the cancer took her, and Nikki stood there holding it for a full minute, thumb on the bird, before she put it in the box.
The photos were in the nightstand drawer — her mom at the lake, her mom laughing with her head thrown back, the two of them on a porch Nikki barely remembered. Under those, the letters. Birthday cards in her mother's handwriting, getting shakier toward the end. She put them all in the box with the jewelry box, like they belonged together. They did.
The documents were in a folder in the closet, exactly where she'd left them: birth certificate, social security card, the insurance paperwork — health, the car — all of it. She flipped through to make sure, counted twice, zipped the folder shut.
The cash was under the bathroom sink, in an old tampon box behind the bleach. Four hundred and sixty dollars in twenties, saved a little at a time from grocery money, hidden for the day she'd need to run. She stared at it for a long moment. She'd never gotten to use it — the bridge had made the decision for her. She put it in her pocket. It felt like finding a letter from a past self.
The car title was in the glove box of — no. She'd kept it in the house. Desk drawer, under the takeout menus. She found it, folded in thirds, and added it to the folder.
"Nikki." Max's voice from the living room. "You want these?"
The DVD shelves. Her grandpa had made them the summer before he died — pine, hand-sanded, the joints so tight you couldn't slip a fingernail in. They were bolted to the wall and loaded with discs she'd never watch again, but that wasn't the point.
"Yeah," she said. "I want those."
It took both of them to get the shelves off the wall. Max carried them out to the truck like they were made of glass.
Beth arrived with boxes and a face like a thunderhead.
She was fifty-something, broad-shouldered, with graying hair pulled back in a practical knot — and she took one look at Nikki standing in the doorway and pulled her into a hug so hard Nikki's feet nearly left the ground.
"Oh, honey." Beth held her at arm's length, looked her over. "I knew. I told Marcy at the salon — I said, that girl's too thin and too quiet, something's wrong in that house. I should have — "
"Don't." Nikki's voice cracked. "Don't do that. It's done. He's in jail."
"I know. You told me." Beth's eyes were wet and furious at the same time. "Eighteen months he was supposed to serve, and then he — " She stopped, breathed. "Are you okay? That's the only question that matters. Are you okay?"
"I'm getting there."
Beth nodded, satisfied for now, and then her gaze moved past Nikki to Max, standing by the truck with a DVD shelf in his arms. The assessment was instant and total.
"You the bounty hunter."
"Max." He set the shelf down carefully. "Ma'am."
"Beth." She looked him up and down. "You the reason she's still breathing?"
"She's the reason she's still breathing," Max said. "I just drove."
Something in Beth's face shifted — approval, grudging and real. "Walk with me," she said. "Nikki, you keep packing. I need to talk to your man."
"He's not — " Nikki started, then stopped, because Beth was already walking and Max was already following, and whatever this was, it was happening.
They walked to the end of the driveway and back. Nikki watched through the window, boxing DVDs, while Beth talked with her hands and Max listened with his — folded, still, the way he listened to everything that mattered.
When they came back, Beth's eyes were red.
"Here's what's happening," Beth said. "The lease is done. I'm tearing it up — don't argue, I've already decided. The furniture, I'll sell it. It's decent stuff, most of it yours anyway. I'll get you a fair price and send you every cent." She put her hands on Nikki's shoulders. "You are not paying me another month's rent for a house you're afraid to sleep in. That's final."
"Beth — "
"Final." Beth pulled her into another hug. "You call me. You hear me? Every week. I mean it."
"I will."
They loaded the truck in silence. Clothes, boxes, the folder, the shelves wrapped in a blanket. The cash was still in Nikki's pocket, all four hundred and sixty dollars of it, and she kept touching it through the fabric like she needed to prove it was real.
At the door, Nikki stopped. Looked back at the empty rooms — the nail holes where the shelves had been, the dent in the carpet where the couch was staying, the kitchen where she'd learned to be quiet.
"Anything else?" Max asked.
She thought about it. Really thought. "No," she said. "That's everything that was ever mine here."
She closed the door. Locked it. Put the key in Beth's hand.
"Clean cut," Beth said softly.
"Clean cut," Nikki said.
She didn't look back. Not once, the whole drive home.