“It’s not worth shit, Bear.”

He shrugged. “Somebody always wants real estate. Even if they don’t want the structure, they’ll want the land.”

My toes bounced on the rung of the stool. “You’ll never get my mother out of that house,” I said. “Not with Birdie.” I shook my head. “It’s …” I searched. “It’s her place,” I said. “It’s all she’s got.”

I couldn’t even begin to think of what I would tell them, how I would say that I was leaving. That I would live over here now.

Why? My mother would ask. Because he’s rich?

“Just … try to trust me,” he said, like he knew he’d get me to come around. He stroked the side of my neck with his finger, tracing the places that ached.

After breakfast, we put Buddy in the Land Rover, and Bear asked me what I needed from the house. Buddy butted his nose against the window in excitement. He knew we were headed toward the woods.

There wasn’t much. A few books, I thought. Some clothes. I wanted to check on Birdie. I needed a moment alone with her, wanted her on my lap, wanted to rough up her curls, get her to belly laugh. I needed to know that I could see her whenever I wanted. What I really wanted was to take her with me. I would send her to school. Set things right for her. She still had a chance.

I told Bear I just needed to check on her.

“Of course,” he said. “You should.”

We parked in the lot and opened the door for Buddy, who tore off after a rabbit in the field.

“I want you to come here as often as you want,” Bear said.

“Okay,” I said.

“I’m not trying to take you away.”

“I know.”

He turned the engine off and just sat, looking at me.

“But,” I prompted, because I sensed it, that he wasn’t saying something.

“But I want you in my bed every night,” he said. He wasn’t smiling. It wasn’t flirtatious, and it wasn’t our bed. It was a demand.

I felt myself tremble. I clamped down. He cupped my knee and shook it. I tried not to think of what he might look like in a rage. Or with a bat in his hand. Or what I might look like with my head bashed in.

TWENTY-TWO: KATERI

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31

Sometimes she wonders about her ex, Andrew. Her grandmother knew his mother, and Kateri can remember him as much as a little boy as she can a man. He knew all her shit. About her mother, about her father. When they got to nineteen and they were both done with the family drama that was no longer theirs, they got married in a courthouse, by a judge. Kateri wore a yellow dress and put flowers in her hair. His mother was there, with her grandmother, holding hands.

It lasted five years.

She had started college without him, commuting in her grandmother’s rusted-out Toyota with peace signs on the bumper. She hated it—the classes, the other kids, the delayed adulthood. She was eager to work, to start living. So she joined the force at twenty-one and was ready to make detective by the time their marriage was over. Andrew thought she was single-minded and selfish. She thought he wasn’t single-minded enough. She wanted him to be independent, for them to work hard, side by side. But she earned the money, and he resented that. They drank a lot. And fought. Or cried.