The Summer Man

Chapter THIRTEEN





Independence Day was a holiday that Miranda Greene-Moreland had mixed feelings about. There were a few—Thanksgiving (because of the oppression of the Native Americans), Christmas (because she didn’t believe in the Western interpretation of God), and Easter (same reason)—that were probably her most troublesome, ideologically. She preferred to celebrate the solstices and made a point of telling everyone so when she handed out gifts every year. The Fourth didn’t have any unpleasant political or religious connotations for her…but it was their day, and every year they made a point of reminding her. That made Independence Day the worst, hands down.

Another explosion boomed through the woods, and Miranda and Terrence, one of the retreat’s yearlong participants, both jumped. They were in the kitchen, making sandwiches for the firework excursion; the entire retreat was heading for the lighthouse at dusk, to see what they could of Port Angeles’s show—and to get away from their crazy neighbors for a little while, who spent every Fourth of July getting ridiculously drunk and blowing things up from morning until well after midnight. Every year, she ended up calling the police. They always promised to send someone over there, but she had no idea if they ever did. One year, she’d gotten so mad that a few of her artists and she had driven over there at two in the morning (on the fifth!), ready to give Cole Jessup what for…only they’d pulled up to the compound’s security gate and honked and no one had come, even though they’d heard drunken laughter in the woods. Someone had fired a bottle rocket in their direction, they’d had to leave for fear of bodily harm, and Chief Vincent had as much as shrugged when she’d complained, saying that it could have been an accident.

Terrence fluttered a hand to his chest. “I wish they’d stop doing that,” he said.

Miranda shook her head, her mouth a grim line as she spread aioli on the sandwich bread. “If wishes were horses,” she said, which had been a favorite saying of her mother’s, and automatically hated that she’d said it. The vague feeling of irritation that came with the reminder that she was, in fact, turning into her mother added to her already high stress level. Shots and whistling bombs and chains of firecrackers had been going off in the woods since early morning, disrupting the community’s spirit, making work impossible.

Except for Darrin, of course. She had no doubt he was in the studio today. Her intense young artist from the East Coast could work through anything, it seemed, and had proved to be her most prolific summer guest, as well as the most popular. He liked to talk about art and the creative process sometimes while he was working, and several of the community members had taken to gathering around while he spoke, listening to his thoughts about the flow of the universe as he sketched or colored one of his brilliant pieces. Miranda had taken her needlepoint and sat in on a few of his sessions and found him to be absolutely inspiring, if a bit…dark, she supposed.

“Which salads are we doing?” Terrence asked, heading back to the fridge with an armful of condiments. “Potato, pasta, and…?”

“Berry melon,” Miranda said promptly. She’d just bought fresh, organic blueberries and raspberries from the farmer’s market in Port Angeles, and the cantaloupe left from breakfast would fill them out nicely. “If you’ll rinse the berries, I’ll—”

Boom! Miranda instinctively ducked as the roar of an explosion echoed around the camp, much too loud to be all the way over on Jessup’s land unless they’d bought a cannon. Probably did, bomb shelter crazies—

Terrence screeched and dropped his armful, mustard, onion, and a packet of sliced provolone hitting the floor. The mustard jar broke, spicy brown goop splattering across the kitchen floor, decorating Miranda’s bare ankles beneath her long, embroidered skirt.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” Terrence hurried to the sink and grabbed the dishcloth, hurried back to kneel and wipe at the floor. Miranda sighed and went to help him.

“I’m such a klutz, I’m so jumpy, and that was so loud, it didn’t even sound like a firecracker…” He dabbed at the splayed strings of mustard, while Miranda carefully picked up the larger pieces of broken glass, the vinegar-mustard smell making her want to sneeze. “That was, like, an MX missile or something. They’re never this bad. Do you think they’re on our side of the line?”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Miranda said, dropping the glass into a paper bag.

“Do you want me to call the police?”

“Why bother?” Miranda said, grabbing a handful of paper towels. “By the time they get here, those crazies will be back on their side, saying they’d never trespass, the trees are clearly marked, Officer.” She ran the towels under the sink and started wiping her ankles, tsking with annoyance when she saw an oily speckle of mustard on the hem of her skirt.

Terrence went to the sink to rinse out the dishcloth. He turned back to her, a slight smile on his face. “You know, last night I was telling some of the new people about the whole history with Jessup, about the cats and everything? And Darrin was throwing out these ideas about things we could do. You know, to mess with the A-team over there.”

Miranda stood up from cleaning her skirt, frowning, imagining slashed tires or broken windows. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Terrence. We’re…” She searched for an analogy and found an appropriate one. “We’re not rival summer camps, are we?”

“Some of the ideas were funny, though,” Terrence said. He finished wiping up the mustard, putting the rest of the things back in the refrigerator as he spoke. “Like, tie-dying their laundry. Or putting all these bumper stickers on their trucks, like, ‘I Heart My Pomeranian,’ or ‘The Goddess Is Alive, and Magic Is Afoot.’”

Miranda couldn’t help a smile at the thought…and a string of loud pops from somewhere close in the woods wiped it from her face. The clock read just after two. So, only five more hours of listening to the survivalists celebrate, before the trek out to the lighthouse.

“It is tempting,” she said. “But if he brings it up again, tell him it’s not a good idea. That sort of thing is beneath us. Besides, I don’t think…”

James was standing in the doorway to the back porch, and the expression he wore made her forget about firecrackers and bumper stickers. “James? What is it?”

He swallowed, and she could see his Adam’s apple go up and down, could see the light sheen of sweat on his face. He looked as though he might vomit. He leaned against the doorframe, his body sagging against it, and took a deep breath.

“I think I found them,” he said. “I mean—I think, they’re out past the kiln. They look like—just—I mean, the tails. I heard the explosion and started walking toward the line, and I heard at least two people, running away. And I almost stepped on them, they’re just laid out, side by side—”

“Speak clearly, darling,” Miranda said, not unkindly.

He swallowed again. “The cats’ tails, Miranda. Eight of them.”

Terrence let out a muffled cry, his hand pressed to his lips, and ran out of the kitchen. Miranda only stared at James, and for the first time since forming the retreat, she thought very seriously about killing Cole Jessup.





Amanda took an extra-long, cool shower in the late afternoon, carefully shaving her armpits and legs, washing her hair twice and using her mother’s good lotion once she got out, rubbing it everywhere she could reach. Eric was going to come by the apartment around six, and they would walk up to the lighthouse together to see the fireworks. After having a little private time.

Boyfriend, got a boyfriend, her mind sang happily, as she wrapped herself in a towel and crossed the narrow hall to her bedroom, to the drowsing fan of hot, tired air blowing around her room. Her mother was at the bar, and Peter hadn’t been around for a couple of days, so she and Eric would have the place to themselves. She still felt a little weird about Eric seeing the apartment—they’d hung out almost every night for the last week, all their “dates” at his house, which was practically a mansion—but he’d seen the apartment’s outside, and she’d already explained how it was with her mom and Peter. Eric came from money, but he wasn’t a snob. He was…he was so cool, about everything. He liked a lot of the same music she did (Nirvana, duh, but also Jack White and Franz Ferdinand), and some of the same movies. He was really into uberviolent video games, which she didn’t get so much, but he read, too; he had a literary streak—he liked pulp fiction, Jim Thompson–type stuff. He was intense and thoughtful and totally hot. The first couple of times they’d had sex it had kind of sucked, on his double bed in the plush basement of his father’s empty house; they were both fumbling and nervous even if he’d played it off all smooth, but the third and fourth times she’d had orgasms, once on top, and once when he went down on her. She smiled just thinking about it, about how he’d told her she was beautiful, afterward, looking right into her eyes…

She dropped her towel, looked down at her soft body, at the white bulge of her tummy, and sighed. At least she had big boobs. And Eric said she looked like Marilyn Monroe, and that he thought skinny girls were all sharp and angled. She worried he was just being nice, but he acted sincere enough.

She glanced at the clock, saw she still had an hour to get ready, and felt a little thrill of anticipation. Only an hour, and then he’d be climbing into bed with her, her rumpled, narrow bed with sheets she’d just changed, the late-day sun streaming in and over their bodies. She gave her room a careful look as she pulled a bra and panties out of her top drawer—black, of course, and her nicest ones—and it looked the same as always, a little cleaner than usual, but still her same dumb room with its buzzing fan and taped-up posters.

Doesn’t matter, she told herself. Eric wouldn’t care. He accepted her; he’d even accepted that she’d had a premonition about Lisa Meyer…

She fastened her bra in the front, then wriggled it around so she could slip her arms through the straps, feeling that familiar knot of anxiety when she thought about Pam Roth’s party and the subsequent rape nightmare, and what she’d seen at the middle school basement, about Devon and the others. She’d talked about it with Eric, and though she hadn’t been hanging with Devon much for the last week, they’d discussed it a couple of times on the phone. The slight tension that had cropped up between them had intensified, with him acting like they hadn’t been best friends for like, three years. He’d actually suggested that she go see a doctor, to rule out something wrong with her brain, but that was stupid, there was no way her mother could afford that—and as the days had slipped by, and Eric had been there, real and absorbing and right in front of her, she’d let herself be swayed toward the idea that it was all in her head, brought on by smoking pot and stress and the fact that she really had foreseen Lisa’s murder. Eric thought so, too.

She put in a Scissor Sisters CD that Devon had burned for her and sat on the edge of her bed with her makeup bag, still wearing just her underwear. She always did makeup, then hair, then clothes, to avoid getting smudges of product on herself, and she settled happily into the ritual, looking forward to her date. She sang along to the music, just a phrase here and there, smudging black beneath her eyes, tinting her lips a matte burgundy. She liked her face, liked the look of it all made up, feeling that the nice, even features compensated for her soft body, somewhat.

She’d just finished her mascara when the phone rang. She grabbed an oversize men’s work shirt off the hook on the back of her door, wrapping it around her as she hurried into the living room. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Devon.”

Amanda carried the phone back to her bedroom. “Hey,’s up?”

“Are we going to the fairgrounds tonight?”

Amanda sat on her bed again, reaching across to turn down the music. “What? Did we have plans?”

There was a long pause. “Uh, yeah, we have plans,” Devon said. “Don’t you remember? After the picnic? You said we should stake out the fairgrounds, just in case anything happened.”

“Yeah, but after last week, you said you thought it was my f*cked-up brain, remember?” she shot back, her defenses snapping into place. “And Eric’s coming over. We’re going up to the lighthouse, to watch the fireworks.”

“Sounds romantic,” Devon sneered. A couple of days after Eric had walked her home that first time, the three of them had gone out for coffee together…and while both boys had been civil, there’d been no real friendliness between them. Eric had been focused on her, and Devon had been overall unimpressed with him—commenting later that he seemed nice and was good looking, in an urban white-boy way. She’d gotten the impression that Devon didn’t think Eric was all that smart but was being tactful in not saying so—although his disdain was evident by what he hadn’t said, and she was a little irritated that he hadn’t at least pretended to be happy for her.

That day at the middle school, when she’d seen him drowned and dead, she’d been so scared, so afraid for him. And he’d been scared too, and he’d believed her. But with Eric to distract her and a growing certainty that the old reporter dude had been spot-on, after all, about her brain trying to convince her that she was seeing real things, Devon’s sudden jealous-queen bit was a little tired. He’d already told her, straight up, that he thought her mind was playing tricks on her, and every conversation they’d had in the last week, he’d been a little more certain each time, a little quicker to remind her that she’d smoked some superstrong pot right before seeing what she had, about him being dead. She hadn’t even bothered to tell him about the strangely vivid and realistic dreams she’d been having, although she and Eric had talked about them a couple of times. There’d been no more nightmares, not exactly, but deep, emotional dreams, like visions from a reality her mind hadn’t created. Like…like the visions, but not as whole. She mostly couldn’t remember them when she woke up, anyway, although a few of the weirder images had remained—a little boy in a hall of mirrors, a grinning woman with blood in her hair. Others. The interesting part was that she kind of felt like those shadowy people, in her dreams. Felt the high-strung anxiety of the little boy, trying to find his way through the mirror maze, which was dark and empty for some reason. Felt a kind of self-righteousness, a grinning wildness within the bloody woman. In the dreams, she saw them and was them, all at once. She doubted the dreams were psychic or anything, but they definitely seemed like part of whatever her brain was up to, lately.

Something I might have shared with my best friend, she thought, and sighed. “Don’t be a dick, Devon,” she said, letting her defenses down a little. “Are we fighting or something? Because I feel like you’re mad that I’ve been busy lately. And after all the weirdness about what I saw and everything, I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I’m not mad,” he said finally. “I just—I mean, this is a big thing in your life, what you’ve been seeing, and we’ve been friends for a while, and I guess I’m kind of…I feel like I’m getting shut out of this totally important thing for you so you can play hide-the-bone with the new guy, you know? I mean, you’ve been seeing him like every day.”

Amanda leaned back against the wall, letting the shirt fall open. The apartment seemed stuffier than usual. Even with the fan blowing directly on her, she was already sweating from the heat. “I know, I know. But he’s…he’s only here for, like, another month, and I’m really liking him, OK? And you’re right, about me being an ass. Let’s hang out tomorrow, OK? I won’t make any plans.”

“We had plans for tonight,” Devon sniffed.

“For a stakeout that we’ve pretty much vetoed the need for, right? And which you haven’t mentioned for, like, ten days or something?”

“Whatever,” Devon huffed, but he was only pretend offended, she could hear it in his voice. “And tell me you’re using protection, by the way.”

“Well, duh.”

She could hear a grin in his voice. “Are we a Magnum Plus? Or does Mr. Eric suffer from the teeny-peeny? You never said.”

“F*ck off.” She hesitated, then added, “We’ll be up at the lighthouse later, if you want to sit on our blanket.”

“Fireworks are for fags. I’ve got a hot date later, anyway.”

On the computer, she silently finished. “You still with, uh, gguy7?”

“I’m so over him,” Devon said. “Actually, my new Romeo is local. Like, meet-me-in-Kehoe-so-you-can-suck-my-cock local.”

Amanda remembered Devon’s blind, staring eyes, filled with water, and felt a touch of apprehension…and hurt, that he’d kept such big news to himself. “You gonna tell me his name?”

“Can’t. It’s strictly on the DL.” Devon sounded pleased. “You wouldn’t believe me, anyway.”

That was her cue to start pumping him for details, but Eric would be over in twenty minutes. Less. “You’re so gay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Whore,” he said breezily, and she hung up on him, smiling—

—and there was a knock at the front door. Eric was early.

She tossed the phone on her bed and ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing it up. “Just a sec!” she called, throwing her makeup back in the bag. She dropped the bag on the floor, next to a stack of books, and did a last look around as she hurriedly buttoned the bottom half of the men’s work shirt. It wasn’t what she planned on wearing to the lighthouse, but f*ck it, they were going to have sex before they left, anyway—and she thought she looked kind of sexy, wearing just a big men’s shirt. The room was appropriately cluttered, but not dirty. She’d done the dishes and picked up the living room, too.

“Hold on, I’m coming,” she said, hurrying down the hall—and as she turned to face the front door, it opened, and there was Peter, stepping quickly inside, closing the door behind him. He still held the key in one hand—and he slipped it into his pocket as he grinned at her, his eyes dark and roving. She reflexively crossed her arms, blocking his view.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low and insinuating. “I left something here. Thought I’d drop by and get it, if that’s OK with you.”

“Whatever,” she said, backing away, back toward her room. Eric was coming; he’d be there any minute.

“Where you going?” he asked, and stepped closer—and dropped his hand to the front of his jeans. He rubbed his thumb over the bulge there, still smiling. “Don’t you want to help me look?”

“Jesus, Peter,” she said, unable to believe he was touching himself, feeling sick and shocked…but not entirely surprised. “Get your shit and get out, right now.”

She wanted to sound tough and mean, but her voice was shaking, her thoughts tumbling—why hadn’t she done something, said something to her mother? Grace had been in a crappy mood lately, distant and irritable, but she should have talked to her, anyway. There was no lock on her bedroom door, but the bathroom had a lock, a wimpy little door lock, but she just had to keep away until Eric came, and—

—and what’s he going to do? Knock? Go home when no one answers?

“Come here,” he said, and took another step, and she turned and ran, and made it about three steps before he grabbed her arm, almost jerking her off her feet. He pulled her to him, grabbed her in a rough embrace, and she shrieked, a startled, angry sound. Peter clapped a hand over her mouth, talking soft and fast.

“Don’t be like that, baby, you’re going to love it; I bet you love to suck dick, don’t you?” His breath was sour with beer and cigarettes. “With your pouty little baby mouth. I’ll make you come, too, I’ll eat you out till you scream, you’ll f*ckin’ love it.”

He lowered his hand while he was talking, cupped his hand around her left breast, still holding her waist tight with his other arm. Tight enough that she could barely breathe.

“I’ll tell my mother,” she gasped, realizing how stupid that sounded as she said it, how ineffectual, as if the threat would be enough to make this stop.

Peter smiled, squeezing her breast. “I already told her about how you’ve been when she’s not around,” he said. “Dressing up, flirting, asking me to sit by you. A little crush on Mommy’s boyfriend. She was mad, but I told her it was normal, I told her to let it alone, that it would pass once you realize I’m her man. And she said if you tried anything else, she’d pack your f*ckin’ bags, so you might want to think about what you want to say to her. About whether you want to say anything at all.”

She could actually see her mother’s face, tight with anger, could see how he’d set it up, no wonder she’s been such a bitch—

“Now we can do this fun or you can make me hurt you, but we are going to f*ck, Amanda-pie.” He used her mother’s nickname for her, from when she’d been a baby. Hearing him say it made her feel ashamed and dirty, like he’d already raped her.

“Let me go,” she said, looking into his eyes, searching for mercy. She’d never liked him, but they’d been nodding acquaintances for months; he was her mother’s boyfriend, for f*ck’s sake—he couldn’t, could he? It sounded like a plea, it was a plea, and there was nothing in his eyes but determination and raw lust, and she could feel his erection against her stomach, a hot urgency, pressing. He leaned in to kiss her, still holding her breast—and she’d been in shock, maybe, but at the thought of his tongue in her mouth, she jerked her head away, bringing her arm up, pushing at his face as hard as she could.

“Let go, I’ll call the f*cking cops, you let me go now!” she shouted, and he grabbed her wrist and squeezed tight. She gasped with pain, looking into his flushed face, and saw clearly that he wanted to hurt her, that he was OK with that—that he had expected it.

“You do that,” he said, and his grin was a terrible thing. “You can tell them that I f*cked your brains out, and you said no—and I’ll tell them what really happened, I’ll tell them that you begged for it, and I’m only human, right? And when I felt bad, after, said I was going to tell Grace, you changed your tune. They going to believe you, you think? The slut daughter of the town lush?”

Amanda stared at him, determined to fight but frozen suddenly by the reality of the situation, the possibility that no one would believe her—

—and someone knocked on the door.

“Eric!” she screamed, and Peter squeezed her wrist tighter, and she screamed again, as loud as she could. Immediately, there was pounding at the door, Eric calling her name, and Peter let her go, an expression of rage contorting his features, his gaze darting to the door and back to her as he pulled away.

“Amanda!” Eric shouted, and started kicking the door, and Peter stuffed his hand into his jeans, readjusting himself, plastering a smile on his thwarted face.

“You just made a mistake,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard over the pounding. He reached for the door, still glaring at her, flipped the lock, and jerked it open. Eric half fell inside, and Peter pushed past him, was outside and gone before Eric righted himself.

He looked at her, confused, looked back outside. She heard a door slam, heard Peter’s truck peel out of the lot a beat later.

“You OK?” Eric asked, and suddenly he was there, putting his arm around her, puffing his chest out as he looked back toward the parking lot, his expression grim. “Did he—was that Peter?”

Amanda nodded and leaned into him, expecting tears to come, but there weren’t any. She felt strangely resigned that she’d just been forced into some nightmare confrontation with her mother, that her date with Eric was f*cking ruined, that she wanted to shower for ten hours, but even if, she’d still be able to feel the warmth of his hand, the insistence of his hard dick at her belly. Overshadowing these things, she saw her life as the tiny, insignificant thing that it was, really. She’d been lucky, but she just as easily could have been violated and her life ruined and the world would have kept turning, turning.

Eric held her, and she felt how much he wanted to protect her, the sense of it suddenly so strong that she felt like she was inside him, loving her…

No. Not love. Infatuation…and something else, a kind of need that she didn’t know, that was beyond her experience. The feeling was as mysterious and fathomless as some oceanic trench. It wasn’t love…but it was something, a connection, more than she’d ever had with a boy, and she was thrilled that she’d inspired such a depth of emotion, even if she didn’t understand it…or understand how she knew, exactly.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself, and let him comfort her, thinking that knowing such a thing wasn’t so bad.





Karen and Sarah had packed a picnic dinner for the guests staying at Big Blue, and they had all gone to the fairgrounds together, two aging couples and the two sisters. Tommy was off with his father in Seattle, and Karen was surprised to find that she missed her nephew. She’d never particularly cared for children, but Tommy was bright and good-natured, and she’d gotten used to having him around. Sarah, too.

Sarah donned a hooded sweatshirt and stood with the others. “Are you coming?”

Karen looked over the table, at the piles of picnic plates and empty containers. The guests would walk directly back to Big Blue after the fireworks, and she didn’t want to return to clean up by herself. It was silly, she knew, in a town Port Isley’s size, but she disliked being by herself outside at night. Too many years in the city, she supposed. Besides, the way her stomach was burbling, she thought she might need to visit the bathroom soon. She’d overindulged on the brie.

“I’ll pick up here,” she said, “be along in a few minutes.”

“I can help.”

Karen glanced around. Someone had started a bonfire in the pit near the bathrooms, and another group had turned up their music, classic rock spilling through the gathering dark. There were still a few dozen people milling about; there’d be no shortage of groups to walk with in the next hour.

“No, you go ahead,” Karen said, and lowered her voice slightly. “I think they could use a guide,” she added, nodding toward her two couples, already starting for the road. The youngest of the four was in her sixties, and all of them had drunk wine. The Kasdens were from California and were celebrating their forty-fifth anniversary, and the Jacksons were summer regulars. Thurman and Maz Jackson were a sweet couple and had always been as sharp as knives, but this summer, both of them had seemed…confused, perhaps, was the best word for it. Thurman in particular. He’d taken a walk the day before and come home nearly three hours later, drawn, his hands shaking, saying only that he’d taken “a wrong turn or two.” It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that he could have asked directions, or used someone’s phone. Karen had been saddened to realize that this would perhaps be their last summer at Big Blue.

“You should be the guide,” Sarah said. “You know the way better than I do, and you’re friends with the Jacksons…”

Karen smiled. “Enjoy the show, sissy. You’re on vacation too, remember? And I need to use the restroom, anyway.”

Sarah grinned. “Too much fruit in your pie? Need to sit for a while, make some brown water?”

“Don’t be crass,” Karen said automatically. Sarah reveled in being gross around her, knew that it bothered Karen no end, although she’d been depressed and anxious for so long after she and Jack had separated that it was nice to see her regaining her sense of humor, however crude. Sarah had mentioned a number of times how strange it was that she suddenly seemed to be over Jack, but Karen wasn’t surprised. Sarah was much stronger than she gave herself credit for; she always had been.

“Oh, OK, Mom,” Sarah said. “She used to say that all the time, you know.”

“Not to me,” Karen said.

Sarah was already walking toward the guests but shot a smile back at her, her light hair tied in a loose ponytail. She looked like a teenager sometimes. Karen watched her walk for a moment, fading into the gloom—and felt her gut rumble again. She hoped it was just her and not the food, or she’d have some unhappy houseguests.

Bathroom first, she decided. She picked up her purse and headed for the squat block building at the park’s far edge. A little boy with a sparkler ran in front of her, his face lit by happiness, and somewhere in the deepening night, a mother called for him in a worried tone.

She was almost to the bathroom when someone called out.

“Hey! Hey, excuse me, can you help me?”

There was a teenager standing at the back of the building, where the trees began. Light from the bonfire cast flickering shadows over his face. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, just a few years older than Tommy.

“I dropped my mom’s cell phone back here,” he said, and smiled, a quick, embarrassed smile. “I’ve got a flashlight—” he held up a dark cylinder “—but I can’t find it. Do you have a cell? Maybe you can call her number, we can find it that way.”

Karen considered her disgruntled bowels—considered, too, that she didn’t know the boy—but another look at his anxious, youthful face and she was reaching into her bag, stepping off the worn path to the bathrooms, moving toward the trees. She pulled out her phone, smiling at the young man. It would only take a minute.

“What’s the number?” she asked, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the music, something by AC/DC—and the teenager stepped back, disappearing into the shadows behind the building, and then a hard, sweating hand grabbed her wrist, and she dropped the phone as she was jerked away from the light.