Page 100 of Forever

DANIEL HAD TOgo into the Walters town center to get gas before he could keep going. As he drove into the tiny constellation of businesses, the bank, grocery store/diner combination, and private-branded pump station were the same as before—which seemed like a miracle, although that made little sense. Only his world, not the larger, commonly held one, had been upended since the spring.

Since ten minutes ago.

And of course, as he went by the diner, he glanced at the lineup of customers having breakfast in the windows—and thought about how he and Lydia had met up there by chance after his interview with her.

He had lied to her at the beginning of their relationship.

She was lying to him at the end of it.

But why?

At the station, he pulled into a pump and was distracted as he filled up, his mind whirling as hetried to keep his emotions in check. When he was finished, he twisted the cap back on his tank and knew where he was going to next—assuming he remembered the way.

Back on the county road, he followed the twists and turns, but the magic was gone. He was simply about getting himself from point A to B now.

When he came up to the house that Lydia had rented, he pulled off onto the shoulder, but didn’t go down the driveway. No reason to. There were children’s bikes in the front yard and a swing set off to the side. A minivan was parked by the back door, and a black Lab who was thick as a couch cushion got to his or her feet and started barking at him.

Well, guess she had given up her lease. He’d assumed she was still getting her mail there and that that was where she had gone when she’d brought her fall and winter clothes over.

Maybe she’d moved out then.

Hitting the gas, Daniel kept going, even though he wasn’t sure where to head next. That issue was solved quick. Candy, the WSP receptionist, had a small house just out of town, and even though he couldn’t remember her last name, he knew where her place was. Cutting the acceleration as he came up to her mailbox, he didn’t bother with a turn signal as he piloted the way onto her drive—

Another short stop.

Lydia’s car was in the driveway. Which mighthave been good news—the kind of thing that suggested the WSP had lost some funding but was still a going concern working out of Candy’s home—except he’d been told the sedan had been totaled when his woman had hit a deer.

The vehicle looked very structurally sound, not a ding or a dent on it.

Footing the bike forward, he left the engine at an idle, got off, and walked around the front of the car. Nope, no catastrophic damage. No obvious repairs—and besides, given that she’d told him it had been totaled, there should have been no way that kind of shit could have been fixed in a week or ten days, especially out here in the sticks.

The town’s mechanic only worked when he felt like it.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

At the Brooklyn accent, Daniel looked over to the front door of the cottage. Candy, last name chemo-brained and forgotten, was leaning out, and yeah, wow. Her hair was the color of a pumpkin, an orange that had absolutely no foundation in the natural chromatics of human follicles. The sixty-year-old was wearing a knitted sweater that had a Santa scene on it, the reindeer racing over her shoulder, the big guy in the red suit with the white beard perched on her hip. The yarn’s knotting was such that there was a sculptural quality to the depiction.

In contrast to all that winter-ready, she was wearing flip-flops—and her toenails were a shiny red and green, like she was in the process of polishing them.

Clearly, she was all ready for Christmas. Like maybe she’d started her countdown on Labor Day.

“Hey,” he said as he went over to the woman.

“You’re looking… great.”

“You never were a good liar, Candy.”

“Ah, how would you know.” She stepped aside. “Where’s Lydia? You wanna come in?”

Well, that answered one of his questions. “I’m okay, and I don’t want to take up much of your time.”

“Time’s all I got. Come in.”

After he shut off the bike’s engine, he was all but sucked into the house, and the decor was like the dress code the woman always sported, full of knickknacks and homey stuff.

“Hey, I know that,” he said.

“What?”

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