Our friendship wasn’t as enduring, and I thought of our time together with a mixture of fondness and shame. Suze was deep into her wild phase before the end of eighth grade, barely fourteen when she started ditching school and shoplifting in the village. That was also the year she began dabbling in soft drugs. Many a night I’d followed her into the woods to a bonfire party, the clearing filled with salvaged furniture, old mattresses, and—as the night wore on—empty beer cans. Led Zeppelin and Jamiroquai blasted on a portable CD boom box, kids chanted along with the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim, bits of ash spiraled up into the stripes of navy sky between the trees, and all the while Suze tried to indoctrinate me into her wayward ways.

I did some things I’m not proud of at those parties, while Suze sat on some randy boy’s lap and cheered me on. Overall, I managed to keep my head, but the same couldn’t be said of my friend. By freshman year of high school, the rumors circulating the cafeteria were cutting: Suze was in a threesome. Suze once did a guy in his thirties. Suze can get you hash, mushrooms, whatever you want. In our small community people often got restless, and drugs were a common distraction, but Suze’s behavior grew increasingly dangerous. I was afraid she’d drag me down with her. Scared of getting hurt. After graduation, when I left for Albany and a career in law enforcement, Suze and the vestiges of our friendship stayed behind.

Over the years, my parents had briefed me on her life—her marriage, the birth of her daughter, the death of her dad. That news was a gut-punch. Mike Weppler was the best: funny and understanding even when his daughter went off the rails. He started teaching at the high school around the time my father took a job with the Board of Ed. Even the most jaded of students had liked Mr. Weppler. I’d sent a card, of course, but that was the extent of our contact. After fifteen years pretty much incommunicado, I’d reached out to my old friend with no illusions that she’d write back. Now, my mobile showed a new message waiting.

Suze’s note was equal parts emojis and exclamation points. If she was upset that I hadn’t approached her sooner, she didn’t show it. Of course, the neglect went both ways. She gave me a rundown of her life before turning the mic over to me. I drew the map of my own recent past in cursory strokes: college, police academy, NYPD, Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Upstate New York. I opted not to mention the abduction and failed fiancé, though they’d probably interest her most of all.

As I typed my reply, I had the overwhelming sense that I was being watched. Pedestrians jogged along the sidewalk, shoulders shrugged against the rain. There were a half dozen men within a few yards of my car, their faces concealed by umbrellas and scarves. None gave me so much as a once-over.