She pulled the picture from her wallet and studied the two women. The name she remembered was Abby, but maybe the woman’s name was something else—something that started with an I. But if they were sisters, why would they have different last names? Unless Baker was a married name? And she had a husband? The questions pinged across her brain like a pinball, striking hollow, empty notes.
She tucked the Bible back into the bag and searched the other pockets. Had she overlooked anything else?
But there was nothing else. She felt in her jeans pockets, back and then front. In her right front pocket, she found something about the size of a wadded tissue. She pulled out a folded strip of newspaper. She held it in one hand, afraid. What else? What. Else.
The thin newsprint felt like it might dissolve in her grip. Unfolding the strip with careful hands, she laid it out against her leg and scanned the page. An image, severed three-quarters of the way down, showed the bottom edge of a mattress. Below, in bold, it read, EVERYTHING MUST G— The edge of the G had been torn off.
On the flip side of the page was a single headline. Police Still Investigating Possible Second Suspect . . . She skimmed the words, her vision blurred by the too-rapid beating of her heart. Her gaze froze on the words second suspect. Why did she have this article? Was she the second suspect? Her sister?
She drew a shaky breath to calm herself. She had a Bible, an address and phone number, a wallet with seven dollars, some piece of a newspaper article, and a picture of herself and another woman. Even with these things, she could not answer the most basic questions about who she was and why she was here, in this place.
Teeth chattering from the cold, she rubbed her ankle gently, trying to work out some of the swelling. She had nothing to use as a wrap, and there was nowhere for her foot to go but back inside the boot. Her eyes teared from the effort of getting back into the damp boots. After quickly repacking her bag, she rose and pushed the door open, squinting in the bright sunlight as she filled her lungs with cold air.
For a moment, she considered leaving the gun behind. Why did she have it? Surely there was some reason. What if she needed it? In the end, she kept it. With a last look around, she left the shed behind and set out into the day, hoping town wasn’t far.
CHAPTER 6
IVER
The bar felt dank, the way it did when the old wood floors were swollen from the moisture in fall and spring. But it was the dead of winter now. The table had gone quiet. Iver kept his gaze on Jack Davis while, across the table, that detective’s eyes bored into him like a drill, which only added to the sensation that his head was about to explode. As though sensing trouble, Cal sidled up close.
“Sheriff.” Iver rubbed Cal’s neck and tried to hide his own fear. “What’s going on?”
“Can you tell me what time you left the bar last night?” Davis asked.
Iver glanced at Mike, who sat motionless in the chair beside Davis, avoiding his eyes. Mike held a notebook in his hands, the one he carried to keep track of tasks he had to accomplish for the bar. Iver could picture his friend’s small block print, the cramped way he held his pen—the same way he’d been holding it since kindergarten. Fear expanded in Iver’s chest until it felt like he couldn’t breathe. A stab of pain, excruciating behind his left eye.
“Iver?” Davis repeated.
He shook his head, pressing his palm against his eye. The pressure eased the pain only slightly.
“Are you all right?”
He turned to the woman’s voice. She had removed her blazer and now leaned forward on her forearms, shirtsleeves rolled up above her elbows. Dark hair pulled back, a woman ready to get to work.
“I need to get my medication. Excuse me, Sheriff.” Iver stood and pushed past Jack Davis, fumbling with the keys to unlock the office. The vision in his left eye was all but gone. He flipped on the overhead light and flinched at the brightness that usually seemed too dim to work by. He staggered to the desk and scanned its surface. Come on. Come on.
He spotted the empty drink glass and slid it into the open drawer of his desk, still scanning for the meds.
Panic built in his chest as he pushed aside paperwork. Where were the meds? His fingers found the bottle beneath the pages of an order fulfillment. He sank into the chair, unscrewed the top, and shook two of the small white pills into his palm, then into his mouth, where he chewed them and swallowed them dry, wincing at the bitter taste. They worked faster when he chewed them. Or that was what he told himself. His cell phone was on the desk, too.
The screen was filled with notifications of missed calls and texts.
Where are you?
The police are here.
Sheriff Davis stood in the doorway. Iver had seen Davis around—in this town, you saw everyone around—but he hadn’t talked to Davis since they’d played high school football together. Or, more accurately, since Iver had sat on the bench while Davis had starred in the games. Iver had been a freshman, Davis a senior. Since then, Iver had talked to Davis exactly once—at the Christmas tree lot before his first tour in Afghanistan. Iver and his wife had been picking out a tree, as had Davis and his wife. They’d had some stupid exchange about which was better—the Scotch pine or the balsam fir.
How things had changed.
Davis looked at him long and hard. “I heard about the accident. You were lucky.”
“Yeah,” Iver said. Lucky to survive the IED that had hit his Humvee. His head pounded harder, and his vision faltered. Luckier than his four buddies, anyway.
Not wanting to be cornered in his office with the sheriff, Iver forced himself out of the chair. Back in the main part of the bar, he sat down next to Mike and across from Davis, leaving an empty chair between him and the detective. The pain in his head was no better, but he was momentarily distracted by fear. Fear of what, he didn’t know. He absently touched the scratch on his knuckles, the vague memory of anger at the periphery of his mind.
“What’s going on?” Iver asked again.
“Just a few questions,” Davis said. “Can you tell me what time you left the bar last night?”
Iver swallowed the bitter aftertaste of his meds and looked at Davis. He didn’t actually remember when he’d left the night before. “I usually leave about ten thirty,” he said carefully. “That sound about right?” he asked Mike.
Mike rubbed his face, the middle finger on his left hand a little shorter than on the right from an accident with an ax when he was a kid. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked up at the sheriff. “Like I told you, Sheriff, it gets nuts in here. I’ve got fifty or sixty people plus the bartenders and the girls. I can’t keep track of everyone.” The way Mike said “everyone” made Iver sound like a child who’d gotten lost.
Still Mike wouldn’t meet his gaze. What the hell had happened?
Mind racing, Iver struggled to put the night back together. Panic mounted in his chest, the kind he’d felt when he’d woken in the hospital and remembered the accident. Or rather, remembered that he couldn’t remember the accident. They had told him what had happened, that the others had died. Brolyard and Wykstra and Sanchez and Garabrant—his closest friends over there—were all dead. Everyone but him.
This wasn’t the same. No one had died. There had been no accident. Last night, he’d done what he always did—he’d arrived at the bar around three to help the guys restock. Mike had been there early, and they’d already finished it, so Iver had hung around at the bar and shot the shit with the first patrons, who usually arrived before four. And he’d started drinking. A beer or two first, usually. Not like he was doing shots or anything. Well, not usually.