“I was trying to improvise.”

“Dumbass.”

“I thought it was pretty clever.”

“Dumb. Ass.”

“I feel like you and Emery would have a lot to say to each other.”

To Somers’s surprise, Connie grinned. “I always liked that miserable motherfucker.”

“Great. I’ll set up a tea party.” Somers grabbed the box and pointed to a door. “Bathroom?”

Connie nodded.

Somers had never dyed his hair before, but he was fairly sure he didn’t need the gloves. It was more complicated than he’d realized, and by the time he’d finished with the cream color developer and the applicator cap and the colorant, by the time he’d snipped and mixed and combed and brushed, he was pretty sure he was never going to dye his hair again. He scrubbed up as best he could and then, staring at his hands, realized the gloves might have been a good idea.

He had twenty-five minutes to kill, so he decided to make his most important phone call. When he stepped out of the bathroom, Connie was gone, probably back to work, so Somers sat at the desk. He found an ancient phone book in the bottom drawer, flipped through until he found the Wahredua A+ Storage and U-Haul Rental, and dialed.

“Wahredua A+ Storage,” a woman said in a gruff, smoker’s voice.

“This is a Rob Mattson at U-Haul regional. Do you want to tell me why the Iowa police are crawling up my ass?”

“What are you—”

“You’ve got fifteen seconds to put me on the phone with your manager before I come down there, shut down the whole fucking franchise, and put everybody out of a job.”

“She’s not here,” the woman said. “My sister’s not here. Jenny’s—” Whatever the woman had been about to say, she managed to cut it off.

“Jenny’s off fucking around, is that what you were about to tell me?”

“No, I—”

Somers blew out a breath. “Look, let’s start over. It’s not your fault Jenny is a royal fuckup. I’ve been pissy all day because the Ames police called me at the crack of dawn, demanding records for one of our trucks that’s sitting in a school parking lot packed with crack cocaine. It’s taken me this long just to figure out where the fucking thing was registered. I’m in Columbia, so I’m handling this whole shit show over the phone. Look, I just need you to check the records on a truck you rented to—” Somers hemmed as though he were searching. “In my computer, it says Gray Dulac. You’ve got one for that name?”

From the other end of the call came frantic clicking. “Yes, yes, right here, Mr. Mattson.”

“Just Rob is fine. I was a royal dick, and I mostly wanted to take it out on Jenny for fucking over my chance at the back nine today. What do you have?”

“Well, I have the pickup paperwork. It was rented to Mr. Dulac, but he added an additional driver, and that was Nicolas Flores. Mr. Dulac got the truck Wednesday morning. The rental was for one day; it was supposed to be back that night, but he called and extended it.”