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Christian Newsome? Never heard of him. Nick Caracci? Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.
My car? I drive a beater 2007 Chevy Lumina. You want to check the plates to see if they were ever recorded by tollway cameras or local POD cameras in Chicago? Go ahead and check.They never were. That car hasn’t been over the Wisconsin border since I moved to Delavan almost a year ago.
Oh, I may have used a Jeep to travel back and forth to Chicago, but that vehicle’s long gone now, and the registration won’t come back to me or Simon, anyway.
Simon Dobias? Never met him, Officer.You mean the guy who let me talk to him for hours and hours after my first SOS meeting, who scraped meoff the floor a week later, when I was about to follow my sister, Monica, into the world of overdosing—me on cocaine, not oxy?
You mean the guy who forced me into rehab, who paid for the whole thing, and who was waiting for me when I came out?
You mean the guy who convinced me to give life another shot?
No, I’ve never met that man. Never heard of him.
—
I drive back to the house, humoring the girls, laughing at their jokes, but inside, a dull ache fills me. I’m ready, though.I have no idea what you’re talking about, Officer.My answers will be confident but not too perfect.
When I turn onto the street, I see immediately that the police vehicle is gone. Relief floods through me. I park in the garage. The kids fly into the house.
“Daddy, I got my ears pierced!”
I walk in slowly, my pulse decelerating, the adrenaline draining from me. The M&Ms are bouncing around the house, heading upstairs to his bedroom and home office, opening the basement door.
“Where’s Daddy?”
I spot him outside, in the backyard, staring out. Something in his hand... a cigarette?
“Girls, put his dinner on the counter. He’s outside. I’m going to talk to him. Just me,” I say as Macy rushes for the door. “Give us a minute, please, Mace?”
—
“Hey.”
Adam is standing by a stone fountain in the backyard, empty this time of year. He is underdressed for the cold, just a light sweater on with blue jeans. A cigarette burns in his hand.
“Since when do you smoke?” I say.
“Since pretty much never.” He looks at the cigarette and tosses it in the grass, stamps it out with his foot. “Monica started smoking to get over the OxyContin. Always seemed dumb. But I’d have gone along with anything that made her stop those pills. I even smoked a few cigarettes with her.Now, every once in a while, when I think of her, I light one up. Isn’t that the dumbest thing?”
“You’re thinking about her,” I say.
He glances in my direction, stuffs his hands in his pockets. “The attorney general’s office was here. The people I complained to after Monica’s overdose? Remember I filed that complaint?”
“I remember.”
Adam looks at me, his jaw quivering, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s dead,” he says.
“He’s— Who’s dead?”
“David.”
“David?”
“David Jenner. The man who stole Monica from us and then stole her money and left her with a bottle of fucking pills to overdose on? The handsome, charismatic, glorified drug dealer?”
I try to act surprised. “Of course I remember. I’ve tried to put that name out of my head.”
He lets out a sigh. “Me, too. And that wasn’t his name, anyway. We figured he used a fake name.”
