“She died… not quite two years ago. Bad hit-and-run accident. Some drunk plowed into her. Accident, I guess. We bought the house out of auction from her – your, ah, her? – daughter. She’d just turned eighteen or something and we put in a bid…” She stops talking. “I’m so sorry.”

Impossible. His thoughts spin around inside his head like a tornado. One second he wants to cry out, push past this woman, find out where they’re hiding Jess. The next second he wants to punch her in the mouth, knock her head clean off her shoulders for lying to him like that. Then he wants to collapse here on the stoop, curl up in a big broken ball of grief and gristle, and weep till the sun goes down and the moon pops up.

All he does is mutter, “Thank you” in a voice he’s not sure is his own. Then he shuffles away from the front door and takes ten steps.

He stands there. This was their house. That was his wife.

Hit-and-run accident.

She died.

She’s dead.

We bought the house out of auction from your daughter.

That wouldn’t have been long before Nora came to him the last time. When she lied to him. And got him to wipe out that nest of gobbos. And shot Werth. Jesus. He always wondered where she got the capital to set up shop so early. From this. From the house sale. And from insurance and whatever money Mookie’d been sending to Jess.

He’d been inadvertently funding his own daughter’s attacks against him.

He didn’t even know his own ex-wife – the mother of his child – was dead.

No wonder Nora hated him.

He does all he can do. He goes home, to the bar, and drinks himself to sleep.

He wakes up at the bar. A plate of chicken fingers in front of him, mostly cold. He knows he didn’t put it there. Nor did he put the bottled water there.

He lifts his brow. Bleary-eyed, he sees Nora sitting next to him.

“Hey, Daddy-o.”

The voice. Rich, dark. Bourbon and cigarettes and chocolate. No. It’s not Nora. It’s Skelly. Or Kelly. That’s what she said: “Call me Kelly from now on.” So he does.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey back.”

She runs her hand across his scalp like his head’s a bowling ball and her fingers are seeking the holes. He holds up the water. “This you?”

“No, it’s a water bottle.”

“Funny.”

“I thought so.”

“Thanks for the water. And the chicken.”

She pats the top of his head. “My pleasure, big fella.”

“You want some meat?” he asks.

“That a come on?”

“I got meat in the fridge.”

“Nope, still not sure if this is a come on or not.”

He musters a chuckle, then goes and fixes her a plate. “I’m a vegan.”

“Ah, shit. Sorry?”