Luke said something else but Kitty wasn’t paying attention. She pulled her gaze from Dawn’s canted walk and smoke-colored hair. “Huh? Sorry, say that again.”

“I said this could take a long time.”

“Or not.” Kitty reached past Luke, grabbed his phone, and slipped off the barstool. “Get me another Coke. I’ll be right back.”

She had slept on the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile car ride from Los Angeles, but only for ten minutes, according to Luke. That might ordinarily be enough to take the edge off, but not on this occasion. It had only upset and unsettled her more, because of the nightmare. In it, Kitty had been trapped in the engine compartment of an old car, the darkness perforated by numerous rust holes in the hood and fender. She heard Johan’s ax striking surfaces all around her—dull, echoing blows. And there was another sound: Levi screaming, crying for her. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” Kitty had struggled and squirmed, and finally managed to free herself. She’d followed the cries until she came to a small severed arm lying on the ground, and that was when she snapped awake.

She had told Luke that it was like Johan was waiting just inside her mind. Like a serial killer behind a door. This was accurate, but it didn’t convey how it sometimes felt like he was with her, standing over her shoulder, or following only a step or two behind. Kitty had heard him breathing in otherwise still moments, and smelled his expensive cologne on puffs of warm air. He touched her sometimes. He’d take her hand and she’d have to shake it off. He stroked her cheek.

Johan was haunting her. No other word for it.

Luke had advised Kitty to seek professional help, and she intended to. She had to exorcise this ghost. Even obscuring it would bring some relief. This was the main reason she had accompanied Luke on his quest to find the bat-faced man. She told him that she was doing it as a friend. True, of course. But what Kitty really sought was a distraction.

Hearing Luke open up about his wife, sharing his hopes and concerns, Kitty became emotionally invested (as if she didn’t have enough on her mind). She was rooting for him, praying that he find some closure, at least. And it was Luke, not Johan, on her mind when she tailed Dawn to the restroom. In those few moments, Kitty had the distraction she’d been looking for.

She walked across the main floor, following the signs for cowgirls. They led her past a gumball machine, down a short flight of stairs, and to the end of a wood-paneled corridor half-blocked by a cleaning cart. The ladies’ room door was denoted by a cartoon of a pistol-toting blonde wearing a ten-gallon Stetson. Kitty pushed open the door and went inside.

Dawn was at one of the sinks. Without looking up, she said, “You a cop?”