“That's sugar,” Elmer had said. “The whole place is full of sugar.” But Andy said the rapid test he did on-site showed meth, put Bobby in handcuffs, left every window in the old mill office Bobby had been living in shattered, the doors torn off their hinges. Bobby spent a week in jail until the sample they'd sent down to the lab came back positive for insect wings and dust mites and, yes, sugar, but not a single trace of meth. Bobby was released but he'd been shaken, gone jumpy. A junior officer reported abnormalities on the scene, and Andy was found to have rigged the rapid test. The investigation found planted evidence, missing evidence, irregular evidence in other cases Andy had been on, and he'd been in prison now for six months. Elmer had rented a crane, bought a bunch of paint, and written a life-sized message across the roof of the old mill: It was sugar, stupid!

Bobby and Leah had been close since grade school, her parents friends with his. Even now, he hadn't blocked her on Facebook, which she considered some kind of miracle. Growing up, she'd had cake at Bobby's birthday parties, beaten him and Elmer both at horseshoes at her high school graduation party. When Leah first went to work for the city, Elmer hadn't seemed bothered by the fact that she was a lady with opinions and decision-making power, and the other men who might have resisted her followed his lead. Leah's own parents had moved to Florida—day-drinking on the beach, skin like leather purses—and Elmer and Marcia, his wife, had been something like backup parents. When Tyler was born, they'd come to visit with a card, a hand-knit baby cap.

In the aftermath of everything, Leah had filed for divorce, been awarded full custody, and promptly gone into hiding. She hadn't seen Bobby or Marcia, only Elmer, at work, where he had become far less cooperative, if not openly cold. There was no way to quantify how much they blamed her. Leah, in the absence of other information, assumed Andy had ruined everything, and Elmer and Marcia, and Bobby too, probably, would never, ever forgive her.

Tyler threw the empty muffin paper onto the floor of the coffee shop and started screaming. “I want a donut!” he shrieked. “A DONUT!”

He crawled under the table, still wailing a deep harmonic undertone to the raindrops that tapped heavy, battered by wind, against the windows, the glass door. One of the baristas widened her eyes, shook her head slightly, and another covered a smirk. Elmer nudged Bobby with his elbow. Bobby turned his face away so that Leah couldn't tell what reaction he was hiding.