“Actually I was hoping to speak to you.” Joel lowered his voice. “You’re dating KT Staler, yes?”

The girl glanced over Joel’s shoulder at the door. A blink and her eyes had gone dark. She said softly, “Is he okay?”

“Why would KT not be okay?”

“I thought maybe Dylan called you.”

“Called me about what?”

“Like an accident or something.”

“He hasn’t called at all. I was wondering when we could expect those guys home today.”

“What’s this about?”

Joel regarded her a moment. “I’m just looking forward to seeing Dylan again.”

The girl didn’t blink. “Aren’t we all?”

Joel stopped by the CVS to ascertain something he’d already guessed: his brother didn’t have a prescription at the pharmacy, and, after a little wheedling (“Are you sure? My mother swears it’s here for him”) discovered that Dylan had never filled a prescription for Oxycodone, or any other medication for that matter.

Joel sat in a creaking wooden booth at Hash and Brown’s Egg House for the better part of an hour, drinking coffee and skimming the pages of the Bentley Beacon. There was a breathless write-up of the game on Friday (DYLAN WHITLEY AND BISON CONTINUE CHARGE...TO STATE FINALS?) and small ads for VOTE MAYOR MALACEK, COUNTY ATTORNEY BOONE, SHERIFF LOPEZ—FOR A CLEAN RECORD.

A waitress came to refill his coffee, but when Joel raised his head to thank her, her eyes widened in recognition. Joel knew that look well. Bethany Tanner had given him one just like it at the game: this waitress was comparing the man in front of her to the boy she had no doubt seen brandishing himself at a camera when she was a girl.

Joel had forgotten just how long this town’s memory could be.

He handed her a twenty and didn’t wait for his change. As he returned to his car, he felt eyes on him from all directions.

He came to a decision. If he wanted to learn what was wrong with his brother he would need a friend in Bentley, someone the place still treated as a local. Clark—Deputy Clark—was out. Paulette was too close to give Joel impartial help. What few buddies he’d hung around with in high school had all distanced themselves after his little scandal.

No, he thought. Not quite all.

“Those boys are fine,” Wesley shouted from the kitchen. “Most of them, I mean. Do you want a beer?”

Joel caught the bright tang of onions striking oil. The size of the house had surprised him: it was an ugly mishmash of tall windows and peaked gables that sat alone at the heart of a new (and apparently abandoned) subdevelopment, its neighbors nothing but bare studs, empty window sockets, drywall swaddled in tattered Tyvek sheeting.

Inside, Wesley had clearly struggled to fill the place. A muted TV rested far enough away from the sofa Joel could hardly read the names of the men in their boxy suits discussing a football game. A little drinks cart rested in a distant corner. A massive iron cross hung above Joel’s head, an outline of the state of Texas inscribed on its heart.