Emilie unfolded the compact emergency shovel from her backpack. The cold mountain air numbed her nose and cheeks, as she utilized her frustration and anger to dig a grave in the snow. She tugged Joe’s beanie down over his eyes, cinched his jacket’s hood, and pulled his rigid body into the pit. Each shovelful slapped against the material of her ex-lover’s parka and blue jeans, as she hid Joe from the foxes and mountain lions and the world. There was no time for ceremony or sadness. Emilie had thousands of days ahead of her to be sad in.
Sunset came fast on the east side of the mountain. She strapped on her snowshoes and headed back down.
As she traversed a clearing, Emilie saw an unnatural object fluttering in the gnarled grasp of a Rocky Mountain juniper. It was a photograph—a Polaroid picture. Emilie plucked it from the tree branch. The photo was a sidelong, close-up shot of an erect penis. The head of the dick contained a faint but unmistakable freckle.
Dizzied by the shoveling and the glare of the sun on the snow, Emilie stashed the photo in her backpack, took a long drink from her water bottle, and continued the journey to her truck, which was parked miles away on a logging road. The photo was her first clue. It felt like nothing. Less than nothing. Like taking the first step of a marathon and not being able to move.
Exhaustion and sadness fed and smothered her rage, like ocean waves breaking on a sandy beach. But her focus was unswerving. Every thought consisting of loyalty and payback.
- - - - -
“What’s up, Em?” Rain shielded her eyes from the dormitory hallway’s fluorescent light.
“I knocked on your door for five minutes straight.”
“I was out cold, kid.” Rain kicked a sneaker over to prop her room’s door open. She had lost the key months ago. “Oh my brimful vesicle. I have to piss like a Swiss rocking horse. Let’s walk and talk.”
It was late morning. Students were heading to and coming back from class in droves.
The bathroom was empty but for the unearthly odor of untold toiletries.
“Long night?” Emilie asked.
Rain hit a stall door with her fist and went in. “I’ve yet to meet a night long enough for my intentions.”
“Yeah.” Emilie leaned on the wall and listened to her friend pee. “I got a phone call from Joe, the other day. I was hoping you could help me make sense of it.”
“If he was yapping in broken French, I’m probably the wrong person to ask.” She wiped, pulled her underwear up, and didn’t flush. “What time do they stop doing waffles in the cafeteria? I’m awe-damned-gay amished-fay.” She shuffled out of the stall, hugged her friend, and walked on, a tad zombified.
“His cell reception was shitty, and when his voice came through, he sounded drugged. And worried.” Emilie held the bathroom door open for her beleaguered friend.
Rain stopped at a water fountain in the hall and drank ravenously. The stream from the bubbler had an unusually high arc.
“When I lived in the dorms,” Emilie said, “the waffle station was put away at eleven o’clock.”
Two girls came out of a room and studied Rain as they passed. Only one was smiling.
“Put some pants on,” the unsmiling one said.
“Says who?” said Rain, messily gulping and sucking at the water. “This is a free country.” There was water all over her shirt now, which displayed an image of a humpback whale.
Emilie’s mind kept shifting from grieving to avoidance to being entertained by her annoyingly hilarious friend. It was hard on her young heart. She hated that Rain was affiliated with the people who probably either killed Joe or knew who did.
Rain put on a pair of pants from the floor of her room and she and Emilie walked across campus.
The student worker at the cafeteria’s entrance swiped Rain’s card through the reader and mindlessly held a hand out to Emilie.
“She doesn’t have a card. Swipe mine again.”
“They changed the rules,” said the cashier. “I can’t double-swipe from the same meal plan.” The kid quickly bowed his head and pushed some buttons on the register, like it was a contraption he had never before encountered.
“Were you looking at my tits?” Rain said.
The cashier slowly turned and locked eyes with Rain. “There’s a bunch of water on your shirt.”
“What am I, your own personal wet t-shirt contest?”
“No,” the cashier said. “I’m sorry. but I have to help these—”
“Maybe if you weren’t so damned busy staring at every pair of boobies—”
Emilie pulled Rain into the cafeteria.
“What are you doing?” Rain said, completely breaking character. “I was gonna get him to apologize.”
“Is anything ever not tug of war with you?”
It was the pre-lunch lull and the cafeteria was relatively empty.
“Motherfracking—” Rain jumped up and down, yelling at the empty waffle bar—“son of a sex worker!”
“It’s ten after eleven, Rainy.”
“Christ on a Craftmatic! They don’t have anyone to... Frickin’—all of ‘em are hiding in the back like pussies!” Rain marched toward the cereal bins. “If they’re out of Cocoa Fuckers, I’m gonna kidnap the president of this school and shit on his balls.”
“The president is a woman,” Emilie said.
“Fine,” Rain said. “Her balls.”
Rain prepared two tiny bowls of cereal and carried them cautiously to a table.
“How long will it be before your brain works?” Emilie asked.
“Placebo effect,” said Rain. “Open fire.” She started in on the cereal.
“During the phone call, Joe wasn’t making much sense, but I kept hearing him mumble ‘ranger.’ It was surreal—like he was talking to me in code.”
Rain chewed the cereal and slurped the chocolatey milk. “Goddamn, that moo juice is good and cold.”
“Do you know anyone named Ranger?”
“No,” said Rain, wolfing down her second bowl. She gulped the milk and slammed her spoon down on the table. Somehow, not a drop had found the table or her shirt. “Palin Amroth drives a Ford Ranger. He might be a trustfund baby, but he definitely loves letting it trickle down. One time he ate my pussy for forty-five minutes. He’s an Olympic athlete, in the sack.”
Palin was a local punk porn star, who was born and raised in Silverette. Legend had it, he’d never left Colorado his entire life.
“Or...” said Rain. She burped. “Joe was saying Granger.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Beefy guy. Did a few videos for Niraj. Got a dig ol’ bick.”
“Did it have a mole on it?”
“You mean, like a beauty mark?” Rain giggled.
“Does his cock have any kind of mole on its head?”
“I couldn’t tell you. His bedroom windows had thick drapes and he wanted to fuck with the lights off. Plus I’d eaten a bunch of mushrooms. So everything had an everything.”
“Joe also said: ‘The sun is... something.’”
“Maybe he meant The Son. You know, the father and the holy ghost of the Silverette porn scene?”
Emilie shrugged. “I’ve only caught shrapnel from a few rumors.”
Rain picked up her spoon. “Anyway, that’s who Granger works for. Pumping out content. Eating every last cupcake in Silverette and smashing them against the wall.” She tapped the spoon against her chin. “As it were.”
Rain got up to get more cereal. Food was the last thing on Emilie’s mind.
- - - - -
Niraj had dated Emilie, briefly, when Emilie was a film major. His room was in the oldest dorm on campus, on the basement floor, and Emilie hated the smell. Like rusty old mop water.
“You have the same setup,” said Emilie. “Elegant and practical. Your visitors must love stepping over your bed to get in.”
“They usually just slide beneath the sheets,” said Niraj. He was staring at his computer, double-clicking and punching in commands. His desk was turned so he was facing the door. As if this were his office.
“I’m locked out of your Kasner,” Emilie said. She flopped her coat over the bedframe and started tying her hair back.
“What do you need in my Kasner for?”
“It’d be nice to get a peek at what you’re working on.”
“I bet,” said Niraj, stretching his arms. “It’s funny. When someone isn’t tonguing my balls on a regular basis, I feel far less compelled to give them all my passwords.”
“Are you editing videos for The Son?”
Niraj slurped his energy drink and continued working.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Emilie, fluttering her shirt. “It’s always so hot in these rooms.”
“I have the window cracked over here. The fresh snow smells good.”
“Your blinds are drawn, buddy,” Emilie said. “Doesn’t that throw a glare on your screen?” She unbuttoned her shirt and was not wearing a bra. “Also, someone might walk by and see us. You know, in the act.”
“Come on, Em,” said Niraj. “Play fair.”
Emilie looked down and touched her nipples with her cold fingers.
“Just so you know, I’m not giving you any passwords,” Niraj said, getting up from his desk. “This is a ‘for old time’s sake’ kind of deal, alright?”
Emilie shrugged. “It’s whatever you want it to be.”
Niraj peeled his pants and boxers off, and lurched forward, taking his ex’s warm plump tit in his mouth. He sucked hard, as if drawing energy from Emilie to power his organ.
Emilie palmed the back of his head and let the pain wash away the sound Joe’s corpse made when it slumped into the hole. She grabbed a handful of Niraj’s hair and pinched his chin, detaching him from her nipple. “Lie down.”
The heavy wooden bedframe screeched against the tile floor.
Lightly fondling the young man’s testicles, Emilie put her head down. The PC’s hard disk began to whir.
Emilie sat up. “Would you give me short-term access to your Kasner?”
“Um...” Niraj’s brain was oatmeal when his nuts were being played with. And Emilie was literally the best at it. “Twelve hours…”
She released his balls and reached for her shirt.
“Fine! Seventy-two!”
The precision and gentleness of Emilie’s tongue, coupled with the intermittent incisal graze, ensured a pleasurable and zesty blowjob.
Niraj shot his load into Emilie’s mouth and she sucked his tube clean. He quickly accepted the semen into his mouth via a long, choreographed kiss, which involved Emilie’s tongue folding and feeding the seed into her ex’s gullet.
Niraj gulped and let out a satisfied sigh.
“Right back into the chamber of secrets,” he said, rubbing his stomach, simultaneously tapped and topped off.
- - - - -
Emilie entered the temporary password and opened a folder brimming with videos Niraj had recently edited. The video icons were kernels of grain, the Kasner Account a silo, and all the hungry fingers and eyes in the world the mill.
Tracking down the mystery cock with the mole on it was priority one. But the shoddy camerawork made it impossible to investigate the dicks. And when Emilie found the mole, what would be her next move? Did that pecker with the freckle belong to the killer? An accomplice? Another victim?
The Polaroid picture could be a red herring. Useless. Meaningless.
Frustrated, Emilie clicked on a video titled “Under The B.” She held her breath when she saw Nika Bechette and Joe, sitting on a couch. In the video, Joe was supposed to be Nika’s swim coach. Emilie turned the sound off. Nika kissed Joe softly, reached down and rubbed his erection through his grey swim trunks. Nika’s bony arm held a sleeve of tattoos—stars, snowflakes, a pin-up girl holding a scythe, surrounded by storm clouds. Joe untied Nika’s bikini top.
Emilie closed her laptop and the only source of light in her bedroom was the occasional passing vehicle and the traffic signal’s rotating green-yellow-red sheen.
After a few hours of bad sleep, Emilie left her apartment and drove her truck to the other end of Silverette. It was still dark.
- - - - -
“You broke into Joe’s bedroom?” Rain climbed back into her lofted bed and threw the covers over her head. “That’s sort of a shit thing to do.”
Sitting at Rain’s desk, Emilie opened the red spiral notebook. “I needed to get his journal.”
“His journal? Is Joe a twelve-year-old girl?”
Emilie pulled her hood over her head, tugged her beanie down, and used her finger to follow Joe’s penned train of thought.
“I do believe privacy is a crutch for people who have a crippling fear of death. But seriously, Em. Swiping someone’s secrets is pretty dang cold.”
Emilie turned the page. “Could you get me a meeting with The Son? For an audition?”
Rain rolled over and stared at Emilie through the slot in her bedframe. “Why? Are you trying to make Joe jealous? Get him back?”
“There’s no getting Joe back.”
“That’s not true,” said Rain. “You’ve done it before.”
Emilie’s stomach grumbled. Joe’s journal was frustratingly vague. Joe saw “big things coming from this new opportunity.” “Getting over my shyness when the camera is rolling is my principal obstacle.” “The other guys are so calm and professional. They make me feel like an imposter.”
A few names made it onto Emilie’s list of suspects. Granger could’ve been jealous that Joe was folded into The Son’s closeknit crew. The Son was a mystery to Emilie, which meant he was capable of anything. And God only knew what paranoiac thoughts were running through Palin Amroth’s angel-dust-addled brain.
“There’s a party at Palin’s tonight. Granger will probably be there. If any dick can get you a one-on-one with The Son, it’s him.”
“Good,” said Emilie and closed Joe’s journal. “Let’s go eat.”
- - - - -
A smoky little group of skirts in front of Palin’s house were animatedly gossipping about Joe Herschner’s disappearance. Rain and Emilie walked across the frozen front yard. Nika got the girls to shut up, and put her arms around Emilie.
“Everyone’s heard the news about Joe,” said Nika. “If there’s anything we can do, babe, let us know.” She was wearing carabiners as earrings.
Emilie followed Rain into the house, which had high ceilings and no walls between the kitchen and the dining and living room. Nika’s younger brother, Adam, was sitting on a kitchen island, a red plastic cup in hand.
“A!” said Rain. “Whatcha drinkin’?” She grabbed the cup and drank. “Yuck, what is that? It tastes like cough syrup.”
“Yahtzee,” said Adam.
Rain held a bottle of vodka up, toasting Adam’s friend in the living room. “Here’s to your fuck, Frank.” She imbibed a healthy pull, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and asked where the party was at.
Adam flipped off a hallway with both middle fingers and used the birds to point, like he was guiding an airplane to its gate. “The story is, Palin was mixing downers with booze… and then he gobbled even more downers. Vicodin and morphine. He’s fucked.” Adam cupped his hand around his mouth, to use as a megaphone. “And my fucking girlfriend thinks she’s gonna bring him back to life.”
“Drama,” said Rain, patting Adam’s leg. She walked to the hallway.
Emilie followed and stood beside Rain, in the doorway of a dimly-lit room.
A young girl, maybe seventeen, sat on the edge of a bed, holding Palin’s head in her lap, dabbing his cheek with a damp, cool washcloth. A quiet gathering of people looked on and drank their stout.
Rain immediately had the attention of a broad-shouldered man wearing a New York Giants jersey and basketball shorts. She waved him over. It appeared he’d had more than a few drinks, the way he was walking.
“Evenin’, miss,” said Granger, his eyelids weighing ten pounds each. “Our party’s growin’ mold.”
“I see that,” said Rain. “Are you alright? Do you need to lie down?”
“Perssibly.” He scratched his balls through his shorts.
“Why don’t you go to Palin’s room with Emilie. She can tuck you in.”
“Hi, Emilie,” said Granger. “Hi.”
Emilie followed Granger to the end of the hall. He punched numbers into a code lock, steadying himself with a forearm against the door, and got the code on the third try.
The room was spare: two black velvet chairs, and a California king mattress on the floor with black bedding. Above the bed was a framed photograph of Johnny Cash, scowling and showing the camera his middle finger.
Granger sat in a chair. “If I lay down in the bed I won’t be able to get up.” He had his eyes closed. “Why’re you here?”
“I wanted to talk to you. About The Son.” This was too easy. Getting the exact right person, alone, under the right circumstances. As long as he didn’t fall asleep.
“Well...” said Granger, and chuckled to himself. “That’s a deep subject.”
“Could you get me in to see him? I mean, what’s the audition process for your videos like?”
“I don’t know... If the man likes you...” Granger’s head wobbled.
Emilie heard someone punching a code into the doorlock. Granger slumped and his head fell to the side, like he’d been hit by a tranquilizer dart. Nika opened the door, briefly poked her head into the room and withdrew it, and shut the door.
“Granger,” Emilie said, nudging his arm. She yelled his name two more times, sharply, and he didn’t react. He had a pulse. He was breathing.
Pulling Granger’s shorts down, she found out he wasn’t wearing underwear. She held his hefty cock in her hand and squinted, wishng she had a magnifying glass to examine the skin for a mole. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Cash’s finger and wondered what the fuck she was doing.
Leaving the room, Emilie walked down to Rain, who was still nursing her bottle of vodka.
“That didn’t take long,” Rain said. “What happened?”
“Nothing. We have to talk.” Emilie turned around and pushed a door open. She flipped the light switch. There was a typewriter on an old desk. Boxes and papers were strewn all over.
“I wouldn’t mess around in there,” said Rain. “Nika will shit a brick.”
Emilie pulled a note out of her pocket, unfolded it, and gave it to Rain.
Rain read the note. “Where’d you get this?”
On the note were typed the words: your old man is at the party spot.
Emilie led Rain out of the hallway, and they headed for the front door.
“Wait,” Adam yelled, surrounded by Nika’s sycophants. “I love you!”
“Who doesn’t?” said Rain, the screen door slamming behind her.
Emilie noticed Nika’s car was gone.
Rain got into the truck and slammed the door shut. “Are you going to debrief me, or what? Cause I feel like I’m not...”
Emilie let the clutch out and the truck eased onto the street. “Are you sure that was Nika’s room, with the typewriter?” She shifted gears.
“Yeah. She calls it her study.”
“There was a Polaroid camera in there.”
Rain lit a cigarette and cracked the window.
Emilie asked Rain why Nika would leave the house when her boyfriend was overdosing.
“Uh...” said Rain. “Because she’s a dumb junkie whore?”
“That note I showed you was mailed to me in an envelope without a return address, and my address was typed onto the envelope with a typewriter.”
“Why would someone send you a note like that? Your dad’s been gone for years.”
“They didn’t mean my dad,” Emilie said. “They meant Joe.”
“How do you figure?”
“You know that spot up in the hills, where high school kids have bonfires and you can only get there by snowmobile?”
“Obviously. That’s where I did molly for the first time and lost my v-card.”
“I snowshoed up there and found Joe.”
“What was he doing?” Rain said. “Camping? Is that where he...”
“His hands were zip-tied behind his back and he had a plastic bag around his head, cinched off at the neck with twine.”
Rain swigged the vodka she had taken from the house, and flicked ash from her cigarette out the window. The mouth of the bottle had hit her teeth and made that terrifying sound.
Emilie turned onto a street that led to Dannon College’s campus.
“Are you taking me home?”
“No,” said Emilie. “I need your help.”
Wet, heavy snowflakes splatted against the windshield, and although they were continuously wiped away, they kept on coming.
“Jesus Christ,” Rain said. She threw her cigarette out the window. “The cops don’t even know Joe’s dead.” She rolled the window up.
“All they know is he’s missing.”
Rain opened her bag and rifled through it.
“What are you doing?” Emilie. “Don’t call any—”
“Chill. I just need a straightener.” She popped a few tablets and swallowed them with a sip of vodka. “I’ll be on-point in twenty-five minutes or so.”
Emilie pulled into the parking lot of Niraj’s dormitory and parked.
“If you’re bringing me into this,” Rain said, “I gotta know some shit.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
Rain turned sideways on the truck’s bench seat. “What can you do that the cops can’t?”
Emilie turned the windshield wipers and the lights off. “Have you seen me on TV or in the newspaper? Are people around town gossiping about what I’m doing?”
“How could they?”
“Exactly. I’m invisible. It’s easier to bag a deer when it doesn’t know you’re there.” Emilie turned the heat down. “But tonight I’m thinking this whole thing is bigger than one person getting... It’s a takedown.”
“What did Granger tell you?”
“Nothing. He was wasted.”
“I still don’t understand how you can do more than the cops. Sure, they suck, but at least they—”
Emilie yelled an expletive and punched the steering wheel. “Nika killed Joe! I want to find her and put her fucking head...” She stopped, concentrated on her breathing, and cleared her mind as much as she could. “This is a theory I’m working on, Rain. And you can either help me or not.” She held her hand up, as a kind of apology. “To confirm whether my theory makes even a little bit of sense, I have to see The Son and there’s only one person I know who might help me.”
“Why would Niraj even think about doing something that risky?”
“When he and I were going out, we were in Austin for spring break. The first night, he drank a gallon of white Russians and that cut the night short. We were lying in bed in our hotel room and he told me that his all-time, number one fantasy was you and me giving him a Nuru massage.”
“That’s it?”
“The kicker is, you have to whisper insults into his ear. Nasty ones. Like Freud gacked at a Friars' Roast.”
The two sat in silence for a while. Rain said that when the clock read ten-past, they could go in.
- - - - -
The girls brushed the cold off their sleeves and followed Niraj into his room.
“I’ll let you know upfront, I need a favor,” said Emilie. She draped her coat over the back of a chair. “Rain and I are willing to compensate you handsomely.”
“I’m flush,” said Niraj. “And I already gave you full access to my Kasner.”
“When I tell you what we’re going to provide you for this information, you’ll know what’s up.”
Niraj put on his poker face. “I can’t imagine.”
Emilie unzipped Rain’s jacket and lifted the hem of her merino sweater to reveal her belly button. She flicked and flicked the flesh around it. “You see how pretty these ripples are? Imagine every inch of her skin touching every inch of your skin.”
“Nuru,” said Rain, and stepped onto Niraj’s bed, looking down at him. “I’ve heard you’re a superfan.”
Niraj cupped his palm over a corner of his desktop and shrugged.
“Don’t act cool. You let the cat out of the bag in Texas. Now Em and I are here to collect.”
“Trust me, if I had anything to give you, I would be stuffing all of it into the pockets of those very tight jeans you’re wearing.”
“Write down The Son’s address and put it in my pocket,” said Emilie, “and we’ll give you a night that’ll break your bar.”
Rain stepped down from the bed, grabbed hold of Niraj’s hand and massaged it. “You ever have a girl this cute whisper all your dirt into your dirty little ear?”
“Seriously. You want me to risk my livelihood and possibly my life, for what? To get off?”
Rain rested her cheek on Niraj’s shoulder. “I’d bet all the money in my underwear drawer you’re the kind of guy who enjoys a lengthy shower in the gym locker room. You take your time washing your hair and scrubbing the stink from your armpits, cleansing all the sweat from your body. But when you dry off, you leave a brown streak on the towel, horrifying the girls at the service desk. They need dozens of gallons of bleach every semester to combat your sanitary incompetence.”
After tucking the address into Emilie’s pocket, Niraj got the gel from a drawer. He yanked his bedding onto the floor and covered the mattress with a fitted plastic sheet. His heart was pounding. The only persons who was close to both The Son and Emilie were Joe and Niraj. And with Joe missing, Niraj thought Granger would track him down and crack his skull open with a pick ax. But if that did happen, it would happen sometime in the future. Maybe even a long time from now. Like, years.
Niraj preferred to live in the present.
Rain raised her arms and Niraj pulled her sweater off over her head. He turned her to face the wall and put his arms around her waist, unbuttoning her jeans. Niraj drew the zipper down so he could feel every last tooth unlatch. He crouched, and as he tugged the jeans down, Rain’s ass jiggled in his face. Rolling her panties down her thighs, he heard songbirds. He stared at her fuzzy peach. In another dimension, this girl’s syrup dribbled from his chin.
Emilie was standing behind Niraj, as naked as the day she was born.
The two girls removed his shirt and pants. Emilie got on her knees, slipped his boxers down and nuzzled his erect penis like a mare with her foal.
The young man lay on the bed and had gel spread on his chest and shoulders and stomach.
Niraj closed his eyes and would keep them shut, planning to occasionally let his hands wander. He felt fingertips swipe gel from his stomach to lube his shaft and balls and legs and feet. He heard a chair slide across the floor. Rain’s hot breath tickled his nostrils and his ear. She lifted his arm, rested it across her thighs, and whispered:
“There’s a big debate about whether rain is wet. We all know rain can make things wet. But the question is: can rain itself be wet? I would argue yes. Rain can be wet. Rain can be very, very wet.”
Familiar thighs straddled Niraj and he wiggled his slippery toes against a pert pair of buttocks. An erect nipple traced his urethral meatus, sending shivers through his body.
Rain twirled Niraj’s curly hair in her fingers. “It must have been uncomfortable for you to shower with all the boys after gym class, back in the day. You step into that bright steamy room of beige tile and reverberating shit talk. Your eyes unavoidably lock onto the Alpha Male. Water glistens in his pubic hair, his intimidating schlong protruding from its dark, curly nest. It’s an elephant’s trunk. A firehose. Or was he circumcised? What I really want to know is: did you search out his fat hog every time you stepped into that shower room? And did you turn to hide yourself from the other boys, Niraj, feeling insignificant? When you rubbed your soapy palm on your dink, did it swell, or did it shrivel?”
A familiar warmth ground against Niraj’s shaft—and the wet pussy’s owner moaned like she was at her father’s funeral. She polished his cock with her rosy membrane, raking her fingernails across his nipples.
Niraj slapped his hand across Emilie’s tits, acquiring lube, and grasped Rain’s thigh, stroking it as if it were The World’s Biggest Dick.
Emilie pinched and pulled at her nipples, thrusting her hips, and the bedframe screeched rhythmically against the old, worn-out tiles.
Rain grabbed a handful of Niraj’s hair and demanded that he come. The first spurt of semen landed on Niraj’s cheek. As Emilie came, Niraj squeezed Rain’s leg hard enough to leave bruises.
Continuing the Nuru, Emilie painted her tits onto Niraj’s chest.
“OK,” said Niraj, sliding out from under Emilie.
“Was that too quick?” Emilie asked. “What do you want us to do?”
Niraj opened a drawer and grabbed three towels. “I don’t know. It was fine. Forget about it.”
They carried the towels across the hall and showered in their separate stalls.
- - - - -
Emilie jumped into her truck and locked the doors. She turned the key and the engine roared to life.
Rain came to the driver’s side and pounded on the glass. “Em!”
“I don’t want to implicate you any further,” Emilie shouted. She threw the truck into reverse and hit the gas. She shifted into first before the truck was done sliding on the ice, and gunned it.
The route to the address involved no more than three turns.
Emilie knew she was a bad person. She could have saved two or three lives if she had just called the cops—sat quietly on the sidelines and let the wolves tear Joe apart.
He would be frozen solid under the snow, by now. Whole. Entire. Paused, almost. Waiting for Emilie to figure out exactly what happened. She was sure she knew. The facts were in.
She turned from Broad onto Roundtree Boulevard. Two blocks away, she hit the headlights, killed the engine, shifted into neutral and rolled to a stop at the curb. She popped open her glove compartment.
The house’s windows were dark. She came up the side of the house, on the driveway, and a security light over the neighbor’s garage turned on. Emilie strode to a door, twisted the knob, and was shut inside before she knew what she’d done. She stood and listened until the light outside went off. The house was dark and silent. She walked across linoleum and passed through a doorway, into the living room.
Emilie reached into her jacket pocket and felt the cold metal. She pulled out the flashlight and turned it on, immediately finding her subject. A gaunt man in his early thirties sat slumped in a chair. His eyes were open. She reached to check his pulse.
“He’s been dead a while,” said a voice.
Turning around, Emilie shone her light on a broad-shouldered man wearing brown slacks and a white button-up shirt.
“I know who did this,” Emilie said. “And I want to help you out.”
Granger sat on the couch. “Two of our boys are tracking Nika down. I’m waiting for the call.”
Emilie rubbed her eyes and it made them burn. “Is Palin gonna be alright?” She blinked through the pain.
Granger stared at his Timberlands. “Is Joe?”
Raising her flashlight over her head, Emilie slammed it against the hardwood floor. It banged loudly and rolled to a stop at Granger’s feet, illuminating the couch’s dusty, sunken underbelly.
A phone vibrated.
Granger opened the flip phone, mumbled OK, and snapped the burner in half, pocketing the pieces. “If you wouldn’t mind going out the same way you came in.”
“Are they bringing her here?” asked Emilie.
Granger handed her the flashlight. As she grasped it, he clicked it off.
“Go to bed.”
- - - - -
It was so clear now.
Nika had poisoned Joe and drove him into the mountains on Palin’s snowmobile, to finish the job. She wanted Palin dead, and Granger dead, and The Son dead. But she slipped up and Granger caught on to her. He pretended to be poisoned at the party, so Nika would assume her plan was working, and this gave Granger the opportunity to get her, while her guard was down. And because Granger never warned The Son or Palin about Nika’s plans, the little smut empire they had built would become entirely his.
Alternative theories were possible, but Emilie ignored them and focused on the pain in her chest.
A broken heart meant she cared.
What exactly she cared about didn’t matter. She could try and describe it, but what were words? In the end, they didn’t mean anything.
All the days ahead of Emilie recoiled into this moment. She breathed her life, in and out, like she was dribbling a basketball in slow motion. And she wasn't going to let anyone steal it from her.
