“Come on, kiddo, let’s get this bugger!” He’d always called her kiddo when they were on a mission together, whether they were going to go out for ice cream or swatting bats out of the house. “Damn pine trees!” he said with every swat. “One of these days, we’ll chop ’em down.” They never did, of course. The bats lived in them, and her dad had secretly told her that every critter needed to live somewhere.

“Like me?” Annie had asked the first time he’d said it. She’d been around seven or eight, and they’d been walking past the pine trees en route to the ice cream shop. “Is that why you adopted me?”

“You bet, kiddo,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You could have either lived in our house or up in the pine trees, and you know that your darn mother doesn’t like you outside after dark.”

His reasoning made little sense, but Annie had giggled and skipped alongside him because he’d always made her feel special. Protected. And, most of all, loved.

She didn’t think he’d ever owned a gun.

Hauling herself from under the covers now, Annie guessed it might be easier to get to sleep if she paced for a while first. She pulled on her quilted robe and stepped into her slippers. Inside the room the night air was cold.

She looked out the window, up at the sky. It was ink-black, as was typical on Chappy. Also as usual, stars were bright and abundant, as if silver confetti had been tossed into the air. “Millions of stars!” her dad had whispered every summer when they were on the Vineyard. “Maybe more! Who knows?” He once said he whispered so he wouldn’t wake up the stars because it was past dark, past Annie’s bedtime, and no doubt, past the bedtime of the stars as well.

These days, her dad was on her mind. A lot. Perhaps because she needed to begin accepting that he was the only dad that she would ever know.

Sighing, she knotted the tie of her robe and headed from her room. If she went outside, she’d have a better view of the sky. Maybe she’d see the Milky Way; she never grew tired of that breathtaking sight. The light from the heavens would be illuminating, so there was no need for her lantern. Still, she’d bring it. “Always be prepared, kiddo,” her dad had often said. He’d been talking about hurricanes and snowstorms and such, not predatory former jerk husbands. Not for the first time, Annie was glad that neither of her parents had lived long enough to have known Mark or to see the person she’d become when she’d been with him: shallow, materialistic, phony—all those things she’d been raised not to believe in.