I lived above a pho restaurant off O’Farrell and Leavenworth, just behind one of the apartment buildings with the doorman. I was about three blocks west of the first apartment Simon and I had lived in after I got out of the hospital years ago.

We’d slept on the floor with the cockroaches, and we both got two jobs each, just so we could afford the one room. After Simon went to Los Angeles for school, I stayed there a little longer until I got the job working construction and made enough to move out. I’ve been living in the same three rooms ever since. I could get a nicer place in a nicer neighborhood, but that seemed like a lot of work and the Tenderloin was home. I wasn’t sure I’d feel comfortable in another neighborhood. There weren’t that many places in San Francisco that looked like me. Felt like me.

Pest stopped to investigate the edge of a building and some other dog’s piss, but I whistled once at her and she abandoned her investigation. A cop drove by, nice and slow, just making the rounds through the neighborhood like they did every night. I felt that envelope, hot against my body where I had it tucked between my jacket and my shirt.

A shitty rumpled paper Pandora’s box.

I hadn’t looked inside it yet, but I had no doubt whatever was in it, it wasn’t legal.

And it was going to unleash a shit ton of trouble on my life. It already had.

Part of me had wanted to open that envelope right there on the bar and find out where Beth was, but a strange burst of caution stopped me.

Caution and Lucy.

Lucy, after Carissa left, came running out of the kitchen, more shaken than I’d ever seen her—and I’d seen her break up some serious bar fights.

“How the fuck do you know her?” I asked Lucy, who, with shaking hands, poured herself a shot of whiskey and knocked it back.

She held the bottle toward me, but I shook my head.

“How the fuck do you?” she snapped. She leaned forward over the edge of the bar, her voice dropped to a whisper even though the place was almost entirely empty. “There’s been a pretty big shakedown around here and I don’t know who she is or who she works for, but she is in it up to her neck. She scares the shit out of me.”

You should have seen her seven years ago.

Lucy had dumped the burgers in a box and handed it to me, and I got the real clear message that me and Pest weren’t welcome back if Carissa was going to be regularly joining me.

I’d left Lucy’s wanting to say good-bye to her. Wanting to tell her that I appreciated all the kindness she’d given me all these years. That I was sorry that night I’d turned her down, that it had been a mistake.

I’d left Lucy’s feeling like I’d never see her again.

The envelope, burning my skin through my shirt, was going to change everything.

Beth. After all these years, what was I supposed to do about Beth?

I’d put that night away. I’d put those feelings away like they belonged to a different person.

That kid who thought he loved a girl who was worlds better than him, that boy who thought he could save her, save everyone… That kid didn’t survive the beating the Pastor gave him.

It was only me now, and I didn’t care. I worked really fucking hard not to care.

I crossed the street to my apartment, walking past the front bumper of a shiny black German-made sedan parked in front. New, from the looks of it. Someone was being reckless parking it so close to the worst neighborhood in the city.

Pest made her way up the stairs to my apartment, one at a time, her tail wagging despite the effort of all those steps.

Inside I gave Pest her burger, breaking it into pieces in her bowl. “Sorry, girl, for making you wait.”

I took my dinner—which I was no longer hungry for—into my living room and set it on my coffee table. I put the envelope next to it and sat down on my beat-up leather couch, the familiar creak of its old springs catching my weight.

Still, I didn’t open the envelope. I turned it over. And then over again. Something in the bottom rattled.

Over the years I’d imagined Beth in about a million scenarios. Living a good life far away from this city and its memories. I imagined her with a boyfriend, some guy who treated her right, and I wanted to punch him in the face on principle. I imagined her putting St. Joke’s and that night a million miles behind her.

I imagined her never, ever imagining me.

She got out of the hell where we’d met—the only place the two of us made any kind of sense—and she moved on.

Moved on. Novel fucking idea.

I tore open the envelope, turned it upside down and let the contents fall onto the coffee table. Pest, done with her burger, came to sniff at mine.

“Go ahead,” I told her, and like the delicate lady she was, she grabbed the burger in the corner of her mouth and flopped down to eat it at my feet.

On the table in front of me was a driver’s license with my driver’s license picture but a different name.

Sam Johnson.

“Jeez, Carissa,” I muttered. “That’s the best you can do?” Sam Johnson screamed fake name. I didn’t even bother wondering how they’d gotten the DMV picture of me. Just another example of the power Bates carried in his pockets like spare change.

There was a limo service ID with my picture and Sam Johnson’s name.

And there was a key. A BMW key fob. I had a strange chill in my stomach, and in the dark shadows of my apartment I went to my front window overlooking the street and the black BMW sitting in front. I hit the unlock button, and the lights blinked on.

The BMW was mine.

Fuck.

Back at the table I picked up the single sheet of printer paper. One side was blank, but when I flipped it over on the other side it said:

Pick up:

1139 Mission Ridge Rd Santa Barbara

Delivery:

1165 Tegner St

Sunshot, AZ

Delivery window 8-9 AM

Text DONE to this number when delivery complete

There was a cell phone number scrawled alongside.

I collapsed backward onto my couch, staring up at the lights from my front window cutting cross patterns through the shadows on my dark ceiling.

What was I supposed to be delivering? And what did Beth have to do with this?

Fuck. I had to be in Arizona by eight a.m. with a stop in Santa Barbara? I glanced at my watch; it was six p.m. now. I had to go. Like…now.

In my bedroom I threw a clean pair of jeans, some underwear, toothpaste and toothbrush and clean shirt in a bag. I also took a second to take off my dark Henley and put on a dress shirt and my only pair of dress pants. It was as close to looking like a professional driver as I could get. With my bag over my shoulder I turned to see Pest in the doorway, watching me with her tail wagging.

I’d be gone two days, barring something going wrong. I couldn’t leave her alone for all that time.

Because something was probably going to go wrong.

“Wanna go for a ride?” I asked, and she barked once in reply. “Let’s go, girl.”

I grabbed the stuff from the table and headed down to the car, which again lit up and honked when I hit the button. My work truck parked in back was going to feel like shit when this little joyride was over.

Work. Crap.

Inside the car Pest predictably called shotgun. Across the steering wheel was a black tie and a handwritten note, pinned to it.

Was pretty sure you wouldn’t have one of these—C.

Yeah, well, I didn’t. Points to Carissa. I looped the tie around my neck but didn’t bother tying it. I grabbed my phone and texted Paul from work.

Emergency. I won’t be at work for a few days.

He texted back right away. Emergency? With what?

I nearly laughed. Right. What in my life had emergencies? Pest turned a circle in the seat and laid down with a flop on the fine leather seats. I imagined returning this car covered in dog fur, and it wasn’t a bad thought.

Pest, I texted.

Crap. Okay. Let me know.

I smiled. Pest went to work with me every day so she was as much a part of the crew as some of the new guys. And I had enough good will built up that a few days off for my dog was not a big deal.

I mean, it was kind of a sad deal, that the only thing in my life was Pest. But whatever.

Crap. And Simon.

Dinner’s off, I texted to him. Will talk later.

I pulled up an app on my phone and plugged in all the addresses to get the route.

I didn’t expect an answer from Simon, but the text bubble appeared.

What happened? he asked.

I thought about lying. But I didn’t lie to Simon. There was no point. And this… Fuck, if Bates was coming for me, he could be coming for Simon, too.

That old debt came due, I texted, feeling like that was the only safe thing to say. Have to go.

And do what? he wrote back. How bad is it?

Not sure yet, I texted. But—I took a deep breath—it’s about Beth.

I put the phone down, put the car in gear and took off into the twilight, heading, it seemed, right back into my past.