Chapter 53

Dean’s POV

I get Dad on the third ring.

"Where are you?"

"Getting the money. Some of it, anyway." His voice is clipped, moving, wind or road noise behind him. "I'll be there soon. Cover for me."

"Dad, you can't just leave your own reception, people are asking—"

"I don't have time for this, Dean. Cover for me." The line goes dead before I can get another word out.

I stand there a second with the phone still against my ear, chest still raw from a letter I haven't even had time to properly feel yet, the words still sitting somewhere under my ribs where I haven't had a second to let them land, and before I can process what he just said, Diane's hand is on my arm.

"Have you seen your father? He's not anywhere. I've checked the bar, the tables, the parking lot." Her voice is climbing, thin, right at the edge of real panic. "It's not