It was a film canister. Curious, she held it up to the light of her lava lamp. It looked old. The orange label had begun to peel. And then, she dropped it as though it had started on fire. It clinked and rolled across the concrete floor, circling back toward her like a planchette on a Ouija board. Morgan picked her feet up, hugged her knees to her chest. She might as well have been communicating with a ghost; she felt the blood drain from her face, her lips go numb, as even in the dim light of her parents’ basement, she saw the handwritten initials on the canister: M.R.

Her lips moved soundlessly. My Ruin.

24 HUDSON

“I ain’t a cop killer, Ryan. Come on. You know me.”

Hudson scrutinized his brother through a thick glass partition. Tobias looked as rough as he’d ever seen him, though in his line of work as a drug dealer, Hudson supposed he must have had days when he’d woken up in worse shape. At least here, in Sulfur County Jail, he was safe. Although—he threw a glance over each shoulder, noting the cops guarding each exit—if he really killed Garrison, he might not be.

He’d sat in his car for a full five minutes before drumming up the courage to go in. The possibility of someone recognizing him scared the hell out of him. While Hudson had never worked in the jail, it was attached to the law enforcement center, a concrete building that, with all its fissures, looked like a skull being forced out of the asphalt. Patrol officers transported prisoners here. Luckily, he still knew very few people on first shift. If he was with Garrison, it’d be a different story. Garrison had been a local celebrity. But without his larger-than-life partner, Hudson was essentially invisible. It worked in his favor, he thought as he finally got out and slammed the door. He paid the meter, cursing Tobias for making him his one phone call.

Now, he stared at Tobias behind a sheet of glass. His skin was sallow. Purplish half-moons cupped his eyes. Stubble covered his usually smooth face and neck. The center of his snowflake tattoo pulsed as he swallowed.

“You think I did it.” Tobias turned away, cut his chin on his shoulder. Sniffed. “Is that why you didn’t warn me?”

The phone caused his voice to echo. It sounded as though they were miles, rather than inches, apart. Hudson’s heart began to hammer, and he reminded himself that Tobias couldn’t hurt him. Not like all the other times, like when they’d been kids and Tobias pushed Hudson off the pier, or later, in high school, when he got his cronies to zip-tie Hudson to the urinal so he could beat the shit out of him.

Where were his cronies now, Hudson wondered. His friends.