One of the symptoms of shell shock is that the victim of the trauma sometimes loses themselves in thought. Craig stared at that picture a good long minute. He turned it over, saw the phone number, and then turned it back again. He waited a bit longer before saying, “No. No. I don’t.”

He didn’t ask where I got the photograph or why I was asking him about it. In short, he was lying. The question was—did he know he was lying?

“There was no body, no blood, no evidence of a life-and-death struggle at the campsite you sent me to,” I said in my professional voice while tugging the little photograph from his fingers. “If I went to the cops with this they’d say, ‘No evidence, no case.’ So my advice is to consider yourself lucky, love your dog, and forget all about Blood Grove. Don’t go up there again.”

Craig gave a smile that was also a grimace. He nodded, shook his head, and then nodded again.

Sammy the dog was leaping up and down between us, whining happily.

“I guess you’re right, Mr. Rawlins,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”

“Hey, mister?” the girl in the short shorts hailed when I came back out on the verandah. She was the only one left out there.

She walked up to me both shy and bold.

“Yeah?”

“Hinder was all mad that you didn’t stop and explain yourself. He wants to think he’s the super but he’s just another tenant.”

“His name is Hinder?”

“Uh-huh. Why?”

“Nothing. People like to think they have control over what they see as their own territory. They try and protect it like a bear or a dog.”

“A dog with no teeth,” the girl said with a sneer. “My name’s Shirley.”

“Easy,” I replied, pressing three fingers against my chest.

“Easy, do you think I should try and be in the movies?”

I’d come up the stairs into this young woman’s life and showed her that the rules she felt oppressed by didn’t necessarily apply. Now she just had to ask the question that burned in her mind both day and night.

I conjured a contemplative look and nodded.

“You know you’re a pretty girl because there’s a mirror in your bathroom,” I said. “And you’re old enough to know what a pretty girl can expect from men between the ages of sixteen and sixty-nine.”

She smiled, telling me that I knew how she felt.

“That’s both a blessing and a curse,” I went on. “As long as you remember that you can try anything you want because the only real thing a young woman like yourself has is her dreams.”

After saying this I hustled down the stairs so as not to incur feeling in myself, herself, or Hinder, if he happened to be watching.

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