“Hotel?” Alice glances at me, then in the rearview mirror at her brother. “She thinks I’m taking her to a hotel.” She laughs, a loud cackle that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. “I know you’re from Atlanta, but we got hospitality up here in Detroit, too. You’re staying with me tonight. Got two big empty bedrooms now that Dom graduated. Dom’s my son, he’s got a job with Amazon if you can believe that. My husband Murray died five years ago this August, so I’m happy to have company. Even if half of it is this ugly mook.”

ALICE LIVES IN Taylor, a town outside of Detroit that’s a couple of miles east of the airport. I’m yawning by the time we pull up to Alice’s house, a narrow but deep ranch house on a leaf-lined street. It’s pitch black and silent outside, not even a dog barking, and somehow I get into Alice’s house with my duffel and mumble my thanks as I’m shown to the guest room. Alice says something about changing Gus’s bandage and they start to argue like a pair of golden retrievers play-fighting, and I close the door and set an alarm for six AM. Then I lie down on the bed, only managing to kick off my shoes before I drop into a dark sleep, where I find myself in some sort of deep cavernous space, and there are other people there as well, carrying flashlights and calling out my name, but they are far across the cavern from me, and I’m not sure whether I want them to find me or not.

I WAKE UP at six AM to the smell of bacon and coffee. I take a quick shower, then pull my hair back into a severe ponytail and put on my one pantsuit, black with a white blouse. I look like a corporate bitch from hell. Perfect. I follow the sounds of pots and pans banging on a stovetop to the kitchen, where I find Alice in a housecoat peering into an oven. She waves me to a breakfast table in the corner and brings me a plate of thick bacon and biscuits with honey and a bowl of strawberries and a thick blue mug of coffee. I scarf down everything and Alice leaves me alone until I’m finished and sipping my coffee. She leans against a counter and sips at her own mug. “So you work with Gus?” she asks.

“He works for my uncle.”

“You two dating?”

I nearly spit my coffee back into my mug. “No,” I say. “Not at all. I mean, he’s a nice man, and I like him. But not that way.” I look around, hoping to God that Gus isn’t hovering in a doorway listening in.