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But no. This is different. Everything aches. And the surface beneath me is hard and cold.
No, I left him at the restaurant. I didn’t go home with him. My eyes fly open. It’s dark. Really dark. What the fuck?
Then on the way home I saw a pickup behind me. His? I wasn’t sure. I kept driving home and it passed me by as I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building. I could see when I parked that our apartment lights were out, Angela asleep or not home yet. She wasn’t making the best choices for herself these days either.
Now, I try to sit, but I can’t. Instead, I lean over and throw up.
Panic starts to flutter in my chest like a bird in a cage.
The last thing I remember is the sound of my car beeping, announcing that it had been locked, the echoing of my footfalls on the concrete, the icy cold night air.
And then? And thenwhat?
Footsteps behind me. Fast, strong.
Forms have started to assert themselves around me. A table and two chairs—old, made of wood. Light coming from somewhere—a window? Where? An old television, one of those in a wood cabinet from a million years ago. A cot over in the corner with a folded blanket on top.
This is the moment when I realize that my arms and legs are bound tight. I can barely see with what. Zip-ties, digging painfully into my flesh. Oh my god. What is happening?
I am dreaming. I am dreaming. I am dreaming.
No. This is real.
A scream, wild with rage and fear, pushes its way up my throat and breaks loose into this dark concrete world, echoes back to me. Again, and again.
10
Miranda and my father are at the kitchen table when I walk in through the back door. There’s a plate set for me, and I put my things down and sit at the table.
My dad wears a bib, his big frame slouched in his chair. But his eyes are awake, alive, looking at me.
“Rough day?” asks Miranda. “You look shot from guns.”
What does that even mean? Nothing good.
She fills my plate with a generous portion of chicken marsala and roasted vegetables. The aroma is heavenly, and I realize I’m starving.
“Busy,” I say with my best fake smile. I have shoved my meeting with Harley into the black box inside me where I keep all unpleasant things. “Holiday season.”
She’s not buying it. Miranda is one of those people who sees past the mask you put on to get through the day.
“That’s a good thing, right?” she says.
“It is.”
“Your dad is having a day too,” she says when I don’t go on. “He knocked over a lamp—I think on purpose. He fought me on his meds. Would not settle for nap.”
She shakes her head. “You gave me a hard time today, didn’t you, Sheriff?”
My dad issues a grunt; his leg hits the table.
Miranda and I exchange a look. My father was a powerhouse—a hometown football star who joined the small Little Valley police force after high school, worked his way up, and was elected Sheriff when I was still a toddler.
As long as I can remember, no one ever called him by his name, James Martin. It was always Sheriff, the first guy everyone called—cat up a tree, drunk and disorderly, drifter come to town, kids setting off fireworks. A small town with small town problems back then.
Before Evan Handy.
“Did something happen?” I ask, looking between the two of them. My dad’s gray hair seems to be thinning; his face is drawn. He’s aged so much in such a short time. But those eyes—intense with intelligence, seeing. They are bright as ever.
