“Got anything good yet?” Sawyer calls out.
“I wouldn’t call it good per se. But I did find a creepy true-crime magazine from the seventies. You?”
“There’s a BB gun in the closet. Otherwise, nada. I have to hand it to him. For a one-and-done military man, the guy is neater than me. You could bounce a quarter off these bedsheets. The bathroom floor is clean enough to eat from. But I’ll check out the other room.” As soon as he says it, I realize the source of the house’s lemony odor. Pine-Sol.
I pad across the hardwood, practically on tiptoe, toward the coffee table, where the remote control rests beside a box of toothpicks and an oversized plastic bag of medications. Beneath it, there’s a collection of photo albums ordered by decade. Sawyer wasn’t kidding.
1971. The handwriting on the back proclaims it so. A dignified Wendall, in uniform, standing at the altar with a sturdy young woman. His Clotilda. Neither had smiled, their faces grave. As if they already knew marriage would be no picnic. What expression would I have offered the camera—what strange contortions of the brow, what pained twist of the mouth—had I known the abysmal fate of the union of Cole Roark and Mollie Krandel? I should’ve worn black on my wedding day.
Two pages later, their expressions hadn’t changed, but the background had shifted. They posed on either side of a FOR SALE sign outside the very house I had weaseled my way into.
I open the 1980s album to the middle and work my way back. In 1985, a bare-chested Wendall holds a stringer of catfish. His catch, at least, had garnered a wide grin. Life had honed him, turned his body lean and ropy. Clotilda had changed too. She’d grown softer, beefier. Dimpled thighs like ham hocks, exposed beneath a caftan. Fleshy, ruddy cheeks under a floppy hat.
The next turn of the page comes with a kick to the gut. A hard kick that leaves me breathless. The photograph is professional, the title embossed in black at the top: 1981 VIETNAM VETERAN’S ASSOCIATION, CHAPTER 702. In the sea of stern-faced men, I don’t recognize Wendall right away. I have to hunt for him. But it doesn’t take long, because there’s someone I do know. Wendall is standing at my father’s side, arm draped over his shoulder like an old friend.
I flip through the rest of the album. All of it devoted to War Hero Wendall. He’d even been president of Chapter 702 for a while, posing with then-governor Deukmejian.
From outside the window, an engine purrs, soft at first. A car passing on the street, perhaps. Then louder and louder until it’s a full-on growl. There’s no denying we’re in trouble. Through a gap in the thick curtains, I see the nose of the Cadillac in the driveway, those dueling sickles mocking me.
My mouth goes bone dry, panic roaring in my ears. Or maybe that’s just the sound of my blood rushing through my head, pushing its way into all those tiny blood vessels the way water charges through an opened floodgate. I shut the album fast and return it to its resting place.
“Mollie!” Sawyer’s heard it too. He grabs me by the arm, jerks me to my feet, and I cling to the metal of his hand. “We gotta go!”
He pulls me past the kitchen and into a smaller room I haven’t seen yet. Just beyond the desk with its ancient PC is the sliding glass door, the backyard. Freedom. Sawyer slips out first, grimacing as he bumps against the sharp edge of the desk, and reaches for me. But the computer comes to life and I’m transfixed by the words on the screen, even as the front door yawns open.
Welcome, DocSherlock. Your session has been idle for over ten minutes.
Please reenter your password to log on.
Frozen, I listen to the jingle of Wendall’s keys as he sets them atop the table in the entry, the click of the light switch. But it’s the heavy clunk of his snakeskin boots that finally spurs me into action.
I’m like a cat, swift and damn lucky, as I follow Sawyer’s path around the desk and out. He points ahead to the back fence, to the one missing plank, as he gently guides the door shut. “That way,” he whispers. “We’ll sneak out the neighbor’s yard. I’m pretty sure the house is vacant.”
I fast-walk across the plush carpet grass, dodging Wendall’s collection of garden gnomes. Until my foot catches the water hose coiled between them and my luck runs out.
A gnome perched atop an impossibly tall, improbably red mushroom tumbles over, knocking into another. His matching pointy red hat cracks, and he falls to the ground, headless.
“Just leave it,” Sawyer tells me. As if there’s anything else to be done. I crouch low and slide through the opening, joining him on the other side in a yard nothing like Wendall’s. What grass I can see is burnt by the sun. Dead leaves blanket the rest. The house’s rotting foundation sags at the middle of it all, threatening to sink into the earth, and a world-weary tabby cat lies stretched in a sun spot, regarding us with disinterest. “He probably won’t even notice it’s broken.”
“He’s DocSherlock.” I’m relieved to say it out loud. Even if I’m not sure what it means. “I saw his computer before we ran. His username was still on the screen.”
Sawyer frowns but doesn’t answer. When I start to move toward the neighbor’s gate, he holds me in place, low and flush against him by the fence line. He puts a finger to my mouth, making the ragged push and pull of my breathing seem dangerously loud. Loud as a steam engine.
“Hey, neighbor!” I know it’s Wendall. But the easy twang of his therapy voice is gone, something hard and vicious in its place. I’d disappear into Sawyer’s pocket if I could. “I told you to keep your goddamned furball out of my yard.”
Wendall curses under his breath, and though I can’t see him, I imagine him cradling the gnome like a baby in his arms, scowling in disgust. The cat perks its ears and vanishes beneath the porch. I wish I could do the same.
“You owe me for this! If that damn cat so much as pisses over the fence line again, he’s gonna get an ass full of lead, you hear me?”
In the tense silence that follows, I flinch, ready to run. But Sawyer won’t let me.
“Don’t test me!” The gnome’s body catapults over the fence, smashing against the side of the house. Next comes the head, its pieces showering into the dirt. Then the thwack of the sliding glass door as it closes.
Sawyer releases me, and I trail him on trembling legs through the neighbor’s gate. It’s marked with a bright yellow CONDEMNED notice that matches the one on the door.
We don’t speak again until we’re locked in the truck and two blocks away with Sawyer driving like he stole it. He turns to me, his hands surprisingly steady on the wheel.
“I guess he noticed.”
****
Sawyer leans back in his seat while I fiddle with the radio, searching for something head-splitting to drown out Wendall’s voice and my own. Because right now, they’re dueling it out like a battle of the bands. But Sawyer shuts the engine, leaving us in silence in my driveway.
“Well that was intense for a Thursday afternoon in the suburbs.” He covers my hand with his as he speaks. It’s kind of a miracle, the way it grounds me to the present.
“Yeah. I don’t know how you do it. Did it, I mean. All those tours of duty. People trying to kill you, blow you up. I can’t even handle a grumpy old man.”
Sawyer shakes his head at me, unsmiling. “First off, grumpy? I’d say foaming at the mouth. You were spot on. The guy’s got issues. And second, it’s no harder than what you do, listening to people’s worst moments. Bearing witness to the horrible things they’ve barely lived through. How do you do that?”
I shrug. “Compartmentalization, I guess.”
“Exactly. The only difference is when you’re in combat, you’re just one big empty compartment. You leave all the other stuff behind. At home. For safekeeping. The problem is when you come back, it’s not so easy to find. It’s not always where you left it.” He taps his chest with his prosthetic. “A part of me, in here, is still as lifeless as my arm.”
I unbuck
le my seat belt and slide across the bench seat toward him. He opens his arm to me and wraps it around my shoulders. “I don’t believe that. Not for one second.” But I know what he means. He’s talking about the in-between people we are. How impossible it feels to get back to the other side. The land of the living.
I reach into my pocket and unfold the picture I’d stolen from Wendall’s album, pointing Sawyer’s eyes to the second row. “Wendall knows my father.”
“Your dad? I thought you said he lived out in the middle of nowhere. That he was . . .” He doesn’t want to repeat what I said. Which only makes me more certain. Sawyer is less in-between than me.
“Batshit crazy? He is. But this photo was taken in the early 80s. He was still on his meds then.”
Sawyer studies the photo, but he has the look of a man who’s just pretending. Whose mind is elsewhere. “Mollie, I think you should steer clear of this guy. I know we didn’t find anything to prove he’s Shadow Man, but maybe stay with Luci for a while. He knows where you live.”
He’s absolutely right. No doubt about that. “I can’t.”
“No. You won’t.”
“Fine. I won’t. Because I can’t. He knows something about what happened to Dakota. More than what he’s saying. I’m sure of it. And I’m so close. I can get it out of him.”
“I assume there’s a completely legitimate reason why this is not a job for the police.”
“The detective thinks I’m just like my father. Cuckoo.”
Sawyer pulls me closer and laughs into my hair. I want to turn my face to him and let him kiss me hard, make me forget. At least for a while.
“And Sawyer, he’s not wrong. I am like my father in a way. In every way. Obsessive, paranoid, a binge drinker . . .”
“Of course you are. You lost a child.”
“Impulsive, irresponsible . . .” I risk a glance up at him. “Hard to love . . .”
It’s not a question. I must be. Cole had left no doubt about that. But he answers me anyway. With his fingers on the back of my neck, he brings my lips to his. Not in the blatant statement of a kiss I’d imagined, more of a gentle promise, and it’s perfect. Because it coaxes me from beneath my hard shell.
“I wasn’t done,” I say, launching into the rest of my loser list. “Stubborn. Unemployed. A total—”
“Neither was I.”
He kisses me again, this one as tender as the last. Proving he’s not a shadow man at all. He’s the real deal.
“There’s something I want to show you. Can you spare a few more minutes?”
He pulls his phone from his pocket and types out a text, holding it up for me to see.
Stopped to help a lady change a flat tire. I’ll be back a few minutes late.
“I’m all yours,” he says. “At least for the next fifteen minutes.”
“So chivalrous of you,” I tease. “But just to be clear, I’m perfectly capable of changing my own tires. It’s the only non-dysfunctional thing my dad taught me.”
****
Sawyer follows me down the path to my office. Where I plan to lay myself bare. To fling open the door and show him just how crazy I’ve become. I focus on the stones beneath my feet. The breeze tickling the back of my neck where Sawyer’s hand had been minutes ago. Anything to distract me from myself. I can’t believe I’m doing this sober.
I pause on the steps, key in hand, considering. It’s my last chance to chicken out.
“I’ve never been back here,” Sawyer says. “What is this place?”
“The guesthouse my ex-husband turned into an office. He thought working would help me feel normal again.” My laugh is a knife strike, sudden and sharp. “Guess the joke’s on him, though. Since I was never all that normal to begin with.”
Sawyer sighs. “Hey, Mollie, just in case I wasn’t clear before. You’re the exact opposite of hard to love. Okay?”
I turn the key and crack the door. The sun spotlights the sofa, illuminating the rich brown leather. Finally, it gets its due. But smack-dab in the middle sits the tissue Wendall must’ve left behind, stained red with his blood and sullying the entire scene. Luciana would probably call it an omen. I wrinkle my nose in disgust as I toss it into the wastebasket.
“Nice sofa,” Sawyer says, perching on the oversized arm. “A little fancy for my tastes, but . . .”
If I wasn’t so nervous, I’d kiss him. Just for saying that. “Cole picked it out. He picked out everything. I think he hoped all this stuff would make me right again. Would make us right again.”
I walk toward the other door, feeling Sawyer’s eyes on my back. “So this is what I wanted to show you. My real office.” It feels as if I’ve slipped my skin, showing him the ruined parts beneath.
Sawyer goes right for the suspect wall, examining it up close. Who wouldn’t? He looks it up and down, then takes a step back and looks again. “Damn. This is impressive.”
“And crazy, right? I mean, what kind of person does this?” I think of Boyd and his wall. A lonely person. So that too.
“I wouldn’t call it crazy. More like determined. Steadfast. A single-minded focus. You’d make a good sniper.”
I think he’s right. Because I can barely hear him over the roar of the past. The day Gus had returned, mangy and thin, and the police had photographed him.
Did he usually wear a collar? Detective Sharpe had asked me, scribbling in his notepad though I hadn’t even answered yet. I’d imagined he was writing about me. That he knew the mistakes I’d made. That this was all my fault. Because then, I hadn’t even noticed Gus’s collar was missing. More evidence of what an awful mother I was.
Yes. A blue one. With his name in white letters and our phone number printed on the inside. Dakota had insisted on it. It’s gone.
Sawyer touches my arm. I feel it, but my sights are set beyond him—I’m a regular Chris Kyle, the legendary SEAL sniper—and I can’t turn away. There, resting atop the box of things I’d carted back from Napa State, is a blue collar. It reads Gus.
BEFORE
Chapter
Fifteen
(Saturday, July 23, 2016)
Dakota’s porcelain pedestal sink was the scene of an arduous ritual sacrifice, splattered with the newly let blood of a unicorn. That’s how it looked anyway. An inch of standing pink water, pink droplets everywhere. Boxes of hair color—pink and bleach—discarded on the tile. Two of her mother’s white towels, stained. And Dakota’s hair, pink too.
“It’s not pink,” Hannah insisted, smoothing the ends as she blow-dried. “It’s rose gold. And it’s sophisticated. Trust me.”
Dakota turned her head right to left, left to right and shrugged, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of agreement. With some things, Hannah could be trusted. Eyeliner, sunless tanning lotion, hair dye. With others, like the basic rules of friendship, not so much.
“C’mon, admit it. You look hot. Dickface—oh, sorry, I mean, Tyler—eat your heart out.”
Dakota winced at the mention of his name. She hadn’t heard from Tyler since Monday when he’d left her at the Pedersons’ mailbox. Not that she’d expected to. Senior boys don’t apologize. And they certainly don’t obsess. They move on. “It’s okay, I guess.”
“Okay? It looks just like Kylie Jenner’s. Maybe even better. I knew it. You’re still mad at me.”
Yes. Very. “No, I’m not.”
Hannah groaned as she wielded a can of hairspray, leaving a plume of metallic sweetness in the air. And—bleh—in Dakota’s mouth.
“I’ve told you a thousand times, I didn’t mean it like that. Dickface twisted my words. I said you were inexperienced, and he needed to take it slow.”
“I don’t understand why you were talking about me in the first place.”
“Look, Tyler was my friend first. I’m the one who set you guys up. It’s only natural he would come to me f
or advice. I was looking out for you, biatch.”
“Alright, alright. I get it.” Even though she didn’t.
Hannah ran two hands through Dakota’s hair and stepped back, admiring her work.
“Your mom’s gonna freak, you know.”
Dakota nodded, her face cracking into a smile that wasn’t meant for Hannah at all but for herself. Because even more than getting Tyler’s attention, ticking off her mom was the whole point. She’d be back from Saturday errands any minute now with her two reusable bags of organic groceries and her fresh gel manicure.
“Speaking of which, you’ve gotta go. I’m supposed to be grounded, remember?”
Hannah shook her head, pitying, and headed down the stairs. “Twice in one month, you rebel. That’s got to be your lifetime record. Let me just get a quick pic for the vlog. My viewers are going to love it.”
She aimed the lens of her phone and Dakota relented, hoping she didn’t look as silly as she felt, posing in one of her dad’s old, stretched-out T-shirts, barefoot in her bathroom. Not exactly high fashion.
“Wait until Dickface sees this,” Hannah said. “You look like a rose petal.”
Dakota felt more like the stem. Lanky and full of thorns. “I doubt he’ll care.”
“So let’s make him.” She tugged down one side of the shirt, baring Dakota’s collarbone, and mussed her hair. Out came the lip gloss. Just a dab. “Gorgeous. Now, look over your shoulder at me.”
As Hannah snapped another photo, Dakota caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and sighed. “I look like I just woke up.”
“But in who’s bed? That’s the question.”
“You’re such a perv. Don’t post that.”
Hannah said nothing, giggling like Dakota had meant it as a compliment. Then she took off down the stairs, giving Gus a cursory pat on the head and Dakota the wave of a pageant queen. Her loyal subjects. Gus had no shame. And neither did she.
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