On the drive through town, the early-morning light reflected brightly off storefront windows, the side mirror of an oncoming car, even the dash of his own truck. Every glare made Iver wince. Since the accident, sunlight was painful. Doctors couldn’t explain it. “The brain isn’t fully understood,” they’d said.
Sunglasses. He had to get new sunglasses.
He turned down the gravel road to his dad’s bar. His bar now. Snow clung to the curled shingles on the roof and the rounded wooden sign that hung from a rusted iron arm. Once upon a time, the ring over the a in Skål had been painted bright cobalt blue. Iver wasn’t sure if he could actually remember the color or if he had just heard about it so many times that his memory had filled in the blank. Either way, the color had faded decades earlier, like most aspects of the bar, which sat like a stubborn reminder that the thing his father had been most proud of was not his son.
By the time Iver pulled up to the bar, a blind spot had formed in his left eye, and it hurt to blink. His father’s bar. The place had been giving him headaches for as long as he could remember, but this was no regular headache. He knew from experience that he’d have a full-blown migraine in a matter of minutes. He lifted Cal to the ground and made his way to the front door. When he reached to unlock the bolt, the door was ajar. Who the hell had closed last night?
He pushed through the door and into the dimly lit space. The smell of rancid beer made his stomach turn. Seated at one of the low tables was his bar manager, Mike Hammond. Next to him was Sheriff Jack Davis. Both men looked like they’d been up all night. Only then did he notice a woman in a blazer on the far side of the table.
“What’s going on?”
“Hey, buddy,” Jack Davis said, standing from the table.
The sheriff crossed the room and reached out to shake Iver’s hand. Forgetting about the cut on his knuckles, Iver shook, wincing at the pain. The sheriff still had the same grip he’d had in high school. Three years ahead of Iver, Jack Davis was big, with a wide neck and a thick head of blond hair. Varsity quarterback from the time he was a freshman, played varsity basketball as a sophomore. He’d gotten some kind of scholarship to college. When he’d come back to Hagen, he’d become deputy sheriff at twentysomething. Sheriff by thirty and married to a gorgeous woman. The guy was perfect. Until Mrs. Davis had up and left for no reason. No one stayed perfect forever. At least Jack Davis had had a turn at it.
Davis glanced down at the hand.
“Cut myself,” Iver said as Davis’s gaze sliced across the room.
Davis motioned to the table. “This is Detective Kylie Milliard,” Davis said. “She joined us from Fargo PD a few months ago.”
Iver didn’t need to see her expression for more than two seconds to know Jack was bullshitting him with the whole “Hey, old buddy” routine. Iver sank into a chair, legs suddenly weak as a new wave of nausea crested in his gut.
CHAPTER 5
LILY
Lily shivered in the dark shed, shifting against the hard concrete ground. Bright light shone from under the door. Her bare feet were cold in the open air, her ankle stiff, painful with even the slightest motion. She looked around the small space as the memories of the night flooded back.
After walking on and off for two hours toward what she’d thought were city lights, she’d come upon a huge flare, its flame hissing like an angry snake. Beside it, two oil pumps had cranked up and down in the night sky. Steel machines, like something from a Star Wars movie. She had walked past the pumps and stared out into the dark.
Beyond the flare, the night sky was an extensive swath of blackness. She was still miles from civilization. A small shed sat beyond the pumps, its door unlocked. She had heaved the door open and entered to take refuge from the cold night air. A small voice in her head had reminded her to remove the wet boots—a half-remembered lesson about frostbite. A generator of some sort was running inside, and the machine kept the space almost warm enough to be comfortable.
She tried to think back further, shuffling through her mind for memories.
The man from the car. Brent. With the nice clothes and the cash in his wallet. Cash she had taken. What was he to her? Was he the one who had told her not to go to the police? To hurry back to Abby?
To fight the spinning thoughts, she recounted what she knew. First, her name was Lily Baker. She had an inexpensive bag with cheap makeup and a wallet with seven dollars. She had been driving with a man named Brent Nolan. They’d had an accident. She’d taken his money but had tried to save him. Then she’d left. The lines repeated in her head. Never talk to the police. Never give anyone your name.
She had a gun. She closed her eyes and tried to remember something about that gun, about herself before waking in that car. She shivered at the memory of standing in the snow with the other girl, Abby. Only she wasn’t a girl; she was a woman. The two had huddled in the dark, frozen, as they’d listened. Lily could feel her own terror. Then there was the slashing sound of boots crunching through the snow. “He’s coming,” Abby had said.
Lily squeezed her eyes closed, searching for more images. Nothing came. She opened her eyes and shifted in the tight space, taking stock of the pain that radiated through her. Neck, face, back, ankle. The tender scratch on her hand, thin slices along her neck that disappeared into her shirt.
But aside from her ankle being caught in the car door, she could recall none of those injuries happening. The final moments were hauntingly clear—the shrieking of metal as the car had tipped over the edge, the hot rush of fear. Had Brent survived the night? She’d heard the ambulance. The OnStar operator had said the response team was two minutes out. If she’d stayed, she would have been in a warm bed right now. But then there was the money she had taken from Brent, the gun, the sense that all of this was wrong. That she was wrong.
You don’t make good choices.
Start, she thought. Start to make good choices.
First, she needed to get out of here. Then she needed to make sure Brent was okay. Find Abby.
Leaning across the space, she cracked open the shed door. The sun was a bright fiery ball in the sky. Immediately she felt the warmth of its rays on her skin. Her stomach growled, and her mouth was tight and parched. She also needed food and water.
She had to move. She needed something to wrap her ankle. With her bag emptied onto the floor, she pushed past the makeup, looking for some piece of fabric to use as a bandage. Only then did she notice that the bag had an inside zipper as well. She pulled it open, slid her hand inside, and felt a small, thick book.
The book was a paperback, its exterior covered with a brown paper bag, like a high school textbook. Intricate black pen designs covered the paper, flowers and vines in and around the lines. The drawings had been sealed with clear packing tape that was worn at the corners. Bits of dirt ran in lines where the tape had come up off the paper.
Had she done that? And why? She was an adult, and this looked like a child’s schoolbook. She flipped the book open. A Bible. The book of Job, chapter fourteen: Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. The words were familiar. She held the book by its spine and shook it, letting the pages flutter open in hopes that some clue would fall from its pages. None did.
Setting the book on her lap, she opened to the inside cover and found small, square handwriting. I. Larson, 416 4th Street, followed by a seven-digit phone number. Someone’s name was on the inside of her Bible. What did the I stand for?