"Word travels fast," I manage.
"Word doesn't need to travel fast in Duster. It doesn't have far to go." She goes back to her crossword. "Welcome to town."
8
MAGGIE
"You're late."
Sloane Archer is standing at the gate of the sanctuary in denim shorts and a white T-shirt that's already damp with sweat, holding a takeout coffee cup and breathing hard. Most of her hair has come loose from her ponytail, her face is flushed, and her mascara has migrated south. She looks nothing like the woman I saw in the courtroom.
"I know," she says. "I'm sorry. It's been —" She pushes a strand of hair away from her face. "There was no coffee at the motel. I mean, there was coffee, but it wasn't drinkable. So I went to the diner and that was better but still not — anyway. I got my coffee and I went back to wait for the bus but it never came."
"It only comes at 6:45," I say.
"I know that now. I didn't know that at 7:15 when I was standing at the stop wondering where it was. So I asked a man walking by if there was a taxi I could call."
"There are no taxis in Duster."
"That's what he said." Her voice is climbing. "So I walked here. In this heat. For thirty minutes."
She says this last part like she's describing an expedition across the Sahara. Her eyes are filling up, and her chin is trembling and then she's crying.
"If a thirty-minute walk is enough to break you, today is going to be a challenge."
Sloane wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. I feel a small, unwanted flicker of something that might be pity. I push it down. She doesn't deserve my pity.
"I sent you an email," I say. "With everything you needed to know. Start time, bus schedule, what to wear, what to bring. If you'd read it, you'd have known about the bus."
"I haven't — I've barely looked at my phone since —"
"That's not my problem. What is my problem is that you were supposed to be here at seven and it's now twenty past eight."
She stares at me. "I know. I said I'm sorry. I couldn't —"
"Your probation officer called."
That stops her. The tears stop, the excuses stop, and she freezes.
"Officer Reeves," I say. "She called to confirm you'd arrived because you weren't answering your phone." I let that sit for a second. "I had to tell her you weren't here."
The color drains from Sloane's face. "What does that mean?" she asks, fumbling with the designer purse hanging off her shoulder — a thing with a monogram print and gold hardware. She digs out her phone. "Fuck," she mutters, stabbing at the screen. "I turned it off."
"It means you were marked absent for today," I say. "And the terms of your community service are clear — every day you miss or arrive late enough to be marked absent, you owe two extra days."
Sloane looks like she's trying to decide whether to argue or cry or run, and she can't settle on any of them. The takeout cup shakes in her hand.
"So for the sake of both of us," I say, "just try to be on time. I don't want you here any more than you want to be here, and the sooner you finish your hours, the sooner we can both get on with our lives."
She looks at me, standing in the dirt in sneakers I suspect have never touched anything that wasn't a sidewalk. "I'm sorry," she says. "For being late, but mostly for what I did to your property. To your animals. I'm really sorry. I should have stopped that night and I didn't and I —"
"I don't want to hear it."
She flinches.
"I'm not being cruel," I say, even though I'm not sure that's true. "I just don't have time for it. You're here because a judge sent you here, not because you had some change of heart, and I've got animals to take care of and a barn wall to fix. So I don't need your apology. I need you to show up on time and do what I tell you."
"Okay," she says. "What do you want me to do?"
