“It’s not a negotiation.” Joe’s face morphs, flowing into a stranger’s eyes and lips, a stranger’s sharp tongue and cruel expression. “I’ve already talked to Estelle about it. You’re going home. To Chicago.” He emphasizes this, as if I may have forgotten. “We’re all going home. I’ll continue to run the investigation from there. They’ll bring on Casey Scheiner as support.”

He might as well have punched me. The air goes straight out of my lungs.

“Fuck you.” I can only whisper it.

Joe sighs. He doesn’t even get angry. That makes it worse, in a way. “You’re not in trouble,” he says, as if that’s what I’m worried about. “You still have a job. But you’re going home, and you’re going to get well, and forget about fucking Kaycee Mitchell.” He starts to turn back to the door, then pivots around to face me again. “Oh. That reminds me. Kaycee called you. Apparently she lives in Florida now.” Joe’s smile is cold and narrow, bleak as thin-shaved ice. “She left a number for you, if you want to call her back.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

I’m sitting in my car staring at the sun reflecting off the glass of Sunny Jay’s and my fingers are shaking so badly I twice misdial the number Joe has given me, reaching first a Florida tanning salon and then a man who fires off some quick Spanish at me before hanging up. My throat is dry as dust. I wish I had something to drink, a beer, a shot, something, but if I drank now it would mean I was really falling apart, and I’m not.

I won’t.

I can’t be.

The third time’s the charm. I close my eyes and feel my heart heavy in my throat. Count the ringtones. One, two, three, four. She picks up after four, and a bad feeling stutters in my chest.

“Hello?” Kaycee’s voice is lower and raspier than I remember. A voice you expect to hear whispering dirty things on a phone sex line. Still, my heart beats faster just hearing it. I can’t say it isn’t her. I thought I would know instantly.

“Is this Kaycee Mitchell?” I ask, and I hold my breath, waiting for her reply.

“You got her. Who is this?”

I go silent, suddenly dizzy.

“Umm…This is Abby Williams,” I say, and she laughs, and I hold my breath again, trying to pin the sound to my memory.

“Abby. Wow. You sound different.” This is either the truth or some perverse form of cleverness. Or both.

“Where are you?” I ask her, and although the area code was one for South Florida, I pray for a wild second she’ll surprise me and tell me she’s come home, like me. Just like that, the urge to see her—not so I can prove anything, but just because—stretches up from a dark space and puts a hand around my thoughts.

“Not far from Sarasota. Been here for a couple of years now. I moved around a lot after I left Barrens.”