I clean up, lock the house. I don’t want Shawn to come home and see my Toyota still in the drive, so I reverse out and head for Dallas.

Houston is waking up now. The roads are getting crowded. Drowsy office workers going one way, petrochemical engineers the other. Soccer moms taking surly kids to school. Long lines at every drive-through, headlights blurred by the haze of exhaust, drivers exiting with huge throwaway coffee cups in their hands and mouths already full of bacon. The radio shouts at me, on and on, like it’s afraid I’ll fall asleep at the wheel if given half a second of quiet.

Eventually rush hour ends, and everything settles. I escape onto the highway, the only traffic a truck blasting past. Just music on the radio now, something with slide guitar over a hip-hop beat.

Sixty miles out of Houston, I pull over at a rest stop. It would be safest to go the whole way to Dallas, make my alibi authentic. But I can’t afford the gas, and it’s not really today I need the alibi for. Last night is the issue. Plus, what if Warner happens to check where my phone is? Not a good look to go far from Houston so soon after the meeting.

I kill the engine and sit, thinking. About the dead guy, about Warner, about how much longer I can live like this. I was hired just over three months back. The traditional probation period is over, but my position only feels more tenuous.

I tell myself I’ll stay at the rest stop for two hours, but I get hungry again after one. It’s not the sort of hunger a roadside diner can fix, so I start the car and head home. Shawn is unlikely to notice that I wasn’t gone long enough for a round trip to Dallas, and I can always tell him Jesse called when I was halfway there.

It’s almost six pm when I tumble into bed after another meal. I’m too exhausted even to dream. A small mercy—my subconscious would have made Freud vomit.

A ringing phone wakes me.

I squint at the old clock radio by my bed. It reads 7.02. An hour of sleep is nowhere near enough, but it could be Warner. She’ll be pissed if I don’t pick up. I drag myself out of bed and hobble towards the landline. My stomach still aches.

By the time I get there, I’m awake enough to remember that Warner wouldn’t use my landline. For some reason, I pick up anyway. ‘Yes?’

It’s a voice I haven’t heard for a long time. The voice of my conscience.

‘Timothy? This is Agent Reese Thistle, FBI. I need you to come to the Houston Field Office, right away.’

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

My square house has four walls, and they all face south. How is this possible?