Ms. Williams, this is Sheriff Kahn. I was hoping you could stop down at the station today, or give me a ring back. I got a complaint from the night manager over at the U-Pack, says there was some kind of scuffle and you disobeyed his order to stop your vehicle. The pictures of the fence look pretty bad, and he’s got security video, too. I’d like to hear your side of the story.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Condor comes to the door even before I’ve knocked.

“Jesus Christ! Come in, before you beat my door down.”

Maybe I did knock. My knuckles are raw-red and sore. My throat swollen as if I’ve been screaming. My mouth tastes medicinal. Vodka. Or whiskey.

I remember a bar, dimly, but I can’t haul the image into focus.

Hours are dropping away, siphoned into darkness.

I remember seeing two calls from TJ, my dad’s friend. I remember letting my phone ring and ring, letting the sound of it drown beneath the noise of the bar.

“What happened to you?” Condor says.

What’s happening to me?

“You lied to me,” I tell him. I count the drinks I must have had by the slur of my speech. Four maybe five maybe six.

“Sit down. You need some water. Sit.” He pilots me into an armchair, and the room slows its turning, like a merry-go-round reaching the end of its cycle. The living room, warm and comfortable, its cheapness buffed and brushed up by details everywhere—pictures of Hannah, framed photographs cluttering the walls, old books stacked high on the shelves—fills me with a sudden shyness. Condor’s living room is like a weather-beaten dock, and I am washed-up wreckage.

A glass cabinet filled with ornate feathers catches my eye and holds it there; silver, gold, purple, blue. As he returns with a glass of water and watches me finish it, he catches me staring.

“Fishing lures. Always have better luck if you make your own.”

The water has cleared my head, just a little. “Thank you. Where’s Hannah?”

“With her grandparents for the week.” He gestures for the glass. “I’ll get you some more.”

I can remember, now, leaving Dougsville, and finding a bar on my way home. I can remember the first drink but not the others. My stomach drops. I think of Misha’s pink shoes and how they ended up on the floor next to my bed after the bonfire in the woods. A sick feeling moves through me, like the world is tilting. “Something stronger,” I say. “Anything you got.”

“I don’t think you need it.”

“I’m telling you I do.” I make an effort to sharpen my words. “Come on, Condor. I’m fine. I can spit and hit my front porch.”

He makes me drink another water first, then opens a bottle of wine and pours me some into an old jam jar. He takes a seat across from me. He moves as if his body hurts.

“Well, what are we toasting?”

I can’t think of a single thing. “To Optimal,” I say, meaning it as a joke. But my voice breaks. “Those fuckers.”