TREVOR Duckworth had rarely driven a van with so few windows. There was the front windshield, of course, and the roll-down ones on the driver and passenger doors. But that was it. The cargo area was totally closed in. There wasn’t even any glass on the two rear floor-to-ceiling doors.
Visibility was a bitch.
A couple of times over the years, he’d found himself behind the wheel of a rental, helping someone move, and he hated having to back the damn thing up. Couldn’t see where you were going. He’d adopted a style of backing up very slowly and hoping that if and when he hit something—or somebody—he’d hear it and stop before he did too much damage.
But after a few days of working for Finley Springs Water, he was getting the hang of it. He could back this sucker up pretty nicely using only the mirrors that were bolted to the two doors. He’d dropped off about a hundred cases of water at several convenience stores around Promise Falls, and had now returned to the plant with an empty truck. He drove up in front of the loading docks, put the column shift into reverse, spun the wheel around, and guided the truck right up to the platform. Stopped an inch short, never touched the bumper.
Hot damn.
He grabbed a clipboard from the other seat that listed the places he’d been and how much had been delivered, and headed to the office with the paperwork.
God, his dad could be such a dick sometimes.
Giving him a hard time about working for Randall Finley. Who cared? A job was a job, and Trevor’d been out of work too long. How long had his parents been at him about getting a weekly paycheck? And then he finally gets one, and his dad’s not happy about it. At least his mother seemed pleased. It was funny about her. She could be such a huge worrier. Like when he was going around Europe with Trish, and was out of touch with his parents for days or weeks at a time. It drove his mother crazy. And yet now that he was back in Promise Falls, she was okay. She was the one he could go to when he had a problem. His dad was another story. Maybe it was the whole thing about being a cop. You got all hard-ass about everything.
And then all this shit about how Finley might have hired him to get some sort of leverage over his father. Sometimes, Trevor thought, his dad believed the whole world revolved around him.
Just as well he lied to him about how he got the job at Finley Springs.
Trevor had said he’d found the job online. That wasn’t exactly the truth. Yes, the water-bottling company had placed ads on the Internet looking for drivers, but Trevor had been offered the job in person. He was at Walgreens, buying half a dozen microwavable frozen dinners, which was about the only thing he ever ate these days at his apartment, when this guy coming down the aisle the other way caught his eye and said, “Hey, aren’t you Barry’s boy?”
“Yeah,” Trevor said.
The man extended a hand. “Randy Finley. I think we may have met a few years ago, when you were just a kid. Your dad and I worked together some when I was mayor. How you doing? Did I hear you were touring around Europe at some point? With the Vandenburgs’ girl? Trisha?”
“Trish,” Trevor said.
They made some small talk. Finley asked after Trevor’s father. Said they didn’t cross paths that much anymore, not since Finley left politics and started up a new business. Had Trevor heard of his water-bottling operation?
Trevor said he had not.
Finley said, “If you know any guys looking for work, point them in my direction. Rest of this town is going to shit, but we’re hiring. Like I say, if you know anyone.”
“What kind of work?” Trevor asked.
“Well, drivers for a start.”
“I’m kind of looking for a job,” Barry Duckworth’s son said.
“Well, shit, you got a driver’s license?” Trevor nodded. “Come on up and see me, then.”
Trevor got the job. If he’d told his father how it had happened, you could just bet he’d have read something sinister into it. Like maybe Finley hadn’t just bumped into him. That he’d somehow arranged it. And Trevor didn’t even give much thought to the fact that Randy knew all about him being in Europe with Trish Vandenburg.
Promise Falls was still a small town in many ways, even if there were more than thirty thousand people living here.
Trish.
He didn’t think about her quite as often. Hell, she crossed his mind only every ten minutes now, instead of every five. How many times had he apologized to her? Said he was sorry? That what he’d done, he really wasn’t like that? He’d just lost his head for a second. She’d actually told him once that she’d forgiven him. But that didn’t mean she was coming back.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Trevor wished he could turn back the clock, start over. You make one stupid mistake, and you never stop paying for it.
He was slipping into the office to drop off the clipboard when he felt a hand slap him atop the shoulder.