On the dark horizon lay a dull-orange glow. Civilization beyond the hill. Again, the instinct to run overwhelmed her. Dread collected like sharp stones in her belly.
She would wait for the police and tell them what had happened.
“Don’t forget the rules.” A boisterous laugh. The same green eyes, an older face. “Abby.” The name was swept into the darkness.
Do something. Find your phone. She turned to her purse and took hold of its zipper. The thread was frayed, the pocket on one side torn at the corner. Nothing like Brent’s Louis Vuitton wallet. She emptied the bag’s main compartment. A light-blue zip-up fleece. A makeup bag containing powder, lip gloss, and mascara, the labels worn off. She pulled on the fleece, saw the broken stitching on the blouse she wore. Her jeans were dark but worn thin at the knees. It was all a far cry from Brent’s expensive jacket and wallet. Maybe they didn’t know each other.
At the bottom of the bag she found a pink-and-red polka-dot wallet. It all looked so innocent, so young. She ran her fingers over the inexpensive vinyl, worn at the edges, and waited for some memory, some sense that the wallet belonged to her, or she to it.
None came.
She cracked it open and squinted at a state-issued ID card from Arizona. The name was Lily Baker. The woman didn’t look familiar, but she guessed from the dark hair in her peripheral vision that she was this woman. Lily.
She studied the ID. Born July 2, 1994. But what year was it now? Was she twenty years old? Or thirty? The address on the ID card was Phoenix, Arizona. She looked around the dark, cold night, thought of Brent’s North Dakota address. This was not Phoenix.
“Mr. Nolan, your response team is four minutes out.”
Lily Baker. You are Lily Baker. She drew another breath and sifted through the contents of the wallet. A debit card for the Paradise Valley Credit Union. A frequent-shopper card for Safeway and a couple of other loyalty cards. The billfold held seven dollars—a five and two ones—and a folded photograph. The image was old, the photo finish cracked where it had been folded, the paper softened from wear. Two girls—one blonde, one brunette. The brunette was her, a younger version of the woman in the ID photo. The blonde was older, her face thinner, her expression more a wry twist than an actual smile. Those same green eyes. Abby. Her sister?
She shivered and looked through the rest of the wallet, but it was empty. There were no receipts, no credit cards. A debit card and seven dollars. She returned the wallet to the bag and unzipped the side pocket. She reached in and drew out a hard metal column, four or five inches long. A flashlight? She held it in her hand, squinting at the black object. Through a slit in the center, she eyed the copper circles of primers, one on top of the other. Bullets.
Not a flashlight. She was holding the magazine for a gun. Tentatively, she fingered the cloth bag and felt the outline of a pistol. She drew it out slowly. Her hands came together, the magazine sliding into the gun with a firm click. She drew the slide back, chambered a bullet.
The pale, fat face, surrounded in blood. “You did it,” the girl whispered.
What had she done?
“Mr. Nolan?”
She jumped, the gun slipping from her hand and cracking against the frozen earth. The sound of a bullet echoed in her mind. Had she killed that man?
“The ambulance is two minutes out, Mr. Nolan. Can you hear me?”
Two minutes. And then, in the distance, she heard the muted shriek of a siren.
“Run,” the voice shouted, sharp and angry. “What are you waiting for?”
She could not be here when the police arrived. She touched Brent’s face, whispered, “Don’t die, Brent. Please don’t die.”
She pulled back the slide to release the chambered round. The bullet dropped to the ground and disappeared from view. She scanned the snow-dusted shrubs underfoot but couldn’t locate it.
Forget the bullet, she thought. Two minutes.
She rose quickly, facing the orange light that blinked beyond the hill. Looping the strap of the bag over her left shoulder, she hurried down the train track as the pitch of the sirens grew louder.
A line came to her. Romans 6:23.
For the wages of sin is death.
CHAPTER 3
KYLIE
At the first vibration of her mobile phone, Detective Kylie Milliard was wide awake. Her father used to say she slept like a cat, one eye open. She’d given Santa Claus a run for his money, but it was a useful skill in her line of work. As she sat up in bed, her fingers found the phone, which spent nights at the edge of her mattress. The main department number showed on the screen. She answered at the second buzz. “Milliard.”
“Hey, there, Kylie, it’s Steve.”
Good humored and easygoing, Steve Cannon had the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted physique of a swimmer. Not that bad to look at. On occasion, when the cuff of his dress shirt had slipped too high, she had spotted a tattoo. In her opinion, most tattoos were men’s attempts to look tougher than they were, and she suspected Cannon’s was no different. He had started in the department a few months before Kylie, the only other outsider. Everyone else had been born and raised in Hagen. Steve had joined as the department’s mechanic, but the small size of the police fleet meant he did a little of everything. Still, middle-of-the-night Dispatch wasn’t usually in his list of responsibilities. “What are you doing at Dispatch?”
“Marjorie’s out. Called me a couple of hours ago. Her back again. Sorry to bug you.”
The clock on the bedside table said 5:27. “No worries. What’s going on?”
“Dead woman in a dumpster.” That was something she liked about Steve. Hagen was full of people who liked to talk. Steve got to the point.
“Who’s the victim?” she asked.
“Don’t know yet. Late twenties, no ID.”
“Where?”
“Skål,” Steve said. “The bar.”
“I know it.” She stood from the bed and stepped out of her flannel pajama pants, the wood floor icy on her bare feet. She grabbed the tan Carhartt pants she’d tossed over her chair last night and pulled them on, phone tucked under her chin. “You call Sheriff Davis?”
“Patrol called him direct. Ambulance, too.”
She zipped her pants quickly and put the phone on speaker. “When was that?”
“Maybe thirty minutes ago.”
She eyed the clock again. Patrol should have contacted her, too. Now she was a half hour behind them. What good was being the town’s only detective if no one called her to the damn scene? Such small-town BS.
This wouldn’t happen in Fargo. She’d be respected there. She just had to get there.
“Sheriff wanted to make sure you got word,” Steve added.
She’d gotten word of it, all right—the last word. “I’ll be there in fifteen.” She could make it in twelve.
“I’ll let them know. Stay safe,” he added, something he always said. It had seemed odd at first, but it had sort of grown on her. Or maybe he had grown on her. Not that she would admit that. Never. Plus, in this tiny town, safety wasn’t supposed to be an issue.
Kylie pulled a blue button-down over the T-shirt she’d been sleeping in, put on a blazer, and zipped her canvas department jacket over it. She was out the door in three minutes.