“Since when?” Kateri asks.

“Few weeks.”

Kateri raises her eyebrows and waits. “Did he quit?” she asks.

“I offer him hours,” Junior says. “He turns them down. He’s got better-paying work somewhere. I don’t blame him,” he says. Then, “I got somebody else.”

Kateri pulls out a card that he won’t take from her. He just nods for her to leave it on the counter, near the napkins, where somebody has neatly lined up all the salt and pepper shakers.

“Why did you say drugs?” Kateri asks Junior.

He waves his hand. “We all know each other’s habits,” he says.

“What kind of drugs?” Kateri asks.

“I don’t know,” Junior says. “Is she on trial? She’s dead.”

Kateri taps her card on the counter. “I’d appreciate your discretion,” she says. “Information has a way of getting to the wrong people. If you hear something, please call me.”

He holds her eye contact for a moment and smirks a little when he says, “Yes, ma’am.” Then he scratches the back of his head underneath the cap, and he leaves the garbage can there, a barrier between them, and goes back into the kitchen to finish cleaning.

Outside, the waitress has gone, and there are no cars in the lot except Kateri’s own Subaru. She sits and waits to pull out, her armpits prickly with heat and embarrassment. She didn’t get anything at all from Junior or the waitress, except that Shannon Jenkins hasn’t even been showing for work. If anything, she’s moved herself further away from the information she needs. She thinks about the signs on the edge of town that read SPRING FALLS GREETS YOU. Not welcomes. Just greets.

SIX: SHANNON

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

My mother went about her business as though nothing had changed. I’d never seen someone so capable of shutting down, of taking a pill and going to sleep, of pretending that their house wasn’t about to be auctioned in two months. Where would we go? I suspected she had a plan, would run, as she’d hinted, back to her own mother, or to a cousin in Vermont, someplace where she could change her name, someplace Park couldn’t find her.

I needed to find out when he was eligible for release.

I needed to make more money.

If they ran and I was stuck with a house taken out from underneath me, with a minimum-wage job, I’d have to go someplace else. I needed a place to live, and in order to get that, I needed more money, or someone to live with. My job alone wasn’t going to cut it. I didn’t even have a car I could live in. Unless my mother ran on foot.

Sometimes I sat in the truck and screamed, alone on a lonely road, where no one could hear me. Sometimes, on days off, I lay in bed while the sun moved over me, from one side of the room to the other. More than once, I stood on the bridge and looked down at the railroad tracks. The train was never coming fast enough.