I didn’t plan it, but instead of making the drive back to my parents’ house, I found myself doubling back to First Street. Before I knew it, I was in front of my old school.

My gaze traveled over the large, low structure that housed both the middle and high school as I pulled adjacent to its windowed double doors. Had it always looked this much like a detention center? It certainly felt like one. I’d been about to start my senior year when I was injured. There were never any graduation photos of me in my parents’ house. Even with some time to heal, the scar on my cheek was as pink and glossy as raw chicken when I donned my cap and gown.

By the time I pulled into a parking spot and put the SUV in park, I could think of nothing but Bram. Where was he now? All day long I’d felt a prickling sensation along my spine and the same cold trickle of disquiet I’d experienced at the bistro with McIntyre. Was he close? Could he be hiding among the dozens of staff and student cars around me, sneering at the institution he’d left behind? Spying on me?

And the bigger question: Could he have something to do with Brett’s death?

I checked the car’s mirrors and swiveled in my seat, probing my blind spot, but while the parking lot was jammed with vehicles and it was coming up on lunchtime, there was nobody around. I felt a little lighter. Being back at the school made my head spin with images from my time with Suze before we grew apart. We’d had fun together, we really had. I shouldn’t have waited so long to reach out. It was becoming increasingly difficult to justify the decades-long cold shoulder she’d gotten from me.

I arrived home early that afternoon and found my parents had returned from their escapade du jour. The cheerful cooking sounds in the kitchen were accompanied by the mewl of sax-heavy smooth jazz. While she cooked, my mother swung her hips in an exaggerated fashion. After our movie night, Dad had bragged about mastering the lotus pose faster than her, an achievement that drove my stiff-hipped, yoga-obsessed mother mad. Her current swagger was a blatant F-you aimed at her limber husband, who was now rolling out pie dough at the kitchen table, but she delivered it with love.

“You’re back!” she said when she spotted me. It was nice to see her smiling again. “And just in time to help me chop some mirepoix. I’m making chicken pot pie.”

It was all I could do not to drool. She sashayed to the fridge, popped open a beer for me, and clinked her own against it with a conspiratorial grin.

“So I saw Crissy,” I said.

Mom’s face clouded. “How did she seem?”

“Honestly? Unsympathetic.”

My parents locked eyes. They’d been together so long they shared thoughts like winter colds, trading them back and forth unconsciously. “Well,” said Dad from the table, “they have a lot of history.”