I reach down and pick my cell phone up from the floor, the screen cracked. But it’s working. It’s still working. I could dial 911. I could get help. I inch backward, toward Bailey.

Protect her.

Charlie puts his hands up in surrender as I reach Bailey, the blue door right behind us. The stairs and the outside world just beyond that.

“Look, I’m sorry about that. I can explain. If you just sit down,” he says. “Take a minute. Can you both do that? Have a seat. I’d like to talk, if you’ll let me.”

He motions toward a table where we can all sit. And he steps away from us, as if giving us a choice. And I can see he means it—in his eyes. He looks more sorrowful than mad.

But his skin is still bright red, and I don’t trust the anger I saw, the fear. Wherever it came from, I can’t have Bailey around it, not until I know what his stake in this is. What I suspect his stake in Bailey is.

So I turn to Bailey. I turn to Bailey and grab her shirt at the small of her back, roughly, pulling her toward the door.

“Go!” I say. “Now!”

And, as though it is something we know how to do, we run down the stairs, together, then outside into Austin’s streets and away from Charlie Smith.

Careful What You Wish For

We move quickly down Congress Avenue.

I’m trying to get back to our hotel room on the other side of the bridge. I need to get us somewhere private where we can collect our things and I can figure out the fastest way out of Austin.

“What happened in there?” Bailey says. “Was he going to hurt you?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so.”

I put my hand on the small of her back, steering her in and out of the after-work crowd—couples, groups of college kids, a dogwalker handling a dozen dogs. I move sideways, hoping to make it harder for Charlie to follow us—in case he is trying to follow us—this man who was so angry at seeing a photograph of Owen that he exploded.

“Faster, Bailey.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” she says. “What do you want me to do? It’s a clusterfuck.”

She isn’t wrong. Instead of the crowds letting up as we get closer to the bridge, there are more people, all clamoring to get onto the bridge’s narrow walkway.

I turn back to make sure Charlie isn’t following us. Which is when I see him—several blocks behind. Charlie. He is moving at a fast clip but he hasn’t spotted us yet. He looks to the left and to the right.