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GAGE

STILL SIX DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

Maren describes a silver bun and a beaded glasses chain, and I make my face do nothing at all.

"It was her," she says. "The one at the window. Gage, it was her."

"I know."

"You believe me?"

"I've always believed you."

She sits down hard on the stool behind her own counter, and the string lights over the register dim about ten percent and come back.

Ours is frightened.

I'm aware.

"Lila was buying bread," Maren says.

I don't answer.

"The bakery's right there. That alley is where they put the bins out. She was buying bread and some old woman stopped her, because old women stop Lila, they always have, she has one of those faces."

"Maybe."

"You're doing the thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing where you go quiet so I can talk myself out of it." She rubs her eyes with the heels of both hands. "Say something."

Here's what I could say.

Two days ago I touched the burn on your front door and sensed a human being who has eaten at your kitchen table. Yesterday I watched your best friend hold her palm flat in that same char that instantly burned four of my fingers. She lied about how she knew you weren't home. She wanted you to come stay at her place instead of mine.

But I don’t say any of it, because if I give you only half the information, you'll spend the rest of the week defending her. Then you'll stop asking me questions, and I would rather you kept asking me questions.

"I think you should let Cass drive you home tonight," is what I say.

Maren looks at me for a long moment.

"Okay," she says.

And she lets it go, which is how I know she doesn't really want to hear the answer either.

The county clinic sits behind the hardware store with four cars in the lot.

The woman at the front window has a paper skeleton taped to her monitor and a bowl of miniature candy bars she pushes toward me without being asked, which isn’t the reaction I usually get.

"I'm looking for Lila Dane."

Her face does something warm. "Oh, Lila. Is she okay?"

"Shouldn’t she be?"

"Well, no, I just mean, we haven't seen her since June." She's already talking, the way people do when they've decided you're one of the good ones. "She said she got a job with better hours. We were sad about it. She used to bring in that pumpkin bread."