I’d only seen this side of the elementary school from a distance. The playground looked old enough that maybe a few baby dinosaurs had, at some point, climbed on the rusty jungle gym. Mulch, burned white after twenty years in the sun, covered the ground under monkey bars that looked ready to collapse the first time anything heavier than a sparrow landed on them. A handful of kids played on the merry-go-round, running to spin it as fast as they could and then climbing aboard and fighting their way to the center past the pull of centrifugal force.
With the sun on my face, with a handful of puffy blue clouds skidding high in the sky, with the wind cut to a gentle breeze, I felt like I’d crossed to the other side of the world, not just the other side of Vehpese Elementary. Letting out a shaky breath, I finally considered the possibility that, for the moment, I was safe.
“You look like Mom when she needs her medicine,” Hannah said, squeezing my hand.
“He got the—” Tyler glanced around quickly and continued, in a lower voice, “He got the shit knocked out of him, Hannah. He doesn’t need medicine.”
“I need to sit down,” I said. My legs still felt like they had as much starch as a pair of old handkerchiefs. A sun-bleached bench faced the playground, and I collapsed onto it. Splinters poked through my shirt and joggers, but I was too tired to care.
“Do you want some water, Vie?” Hannah asked after a minute.
“He doesn’t need water. I bet he needs a beer. Right, Vie? Do you need a beer?”
“Do you have a beer?” I asked, covering my eyes with one hand and trying to soak up the sun.
It took a moment before Tyler answered, “No.”
“Do you have water?”
Another moment passed. “We could get some,” Hannah offered.
I shook my head. “So your mom’s not here.”
“No,” Hannah said. “Tyler thought of that. He said we should scream for mom, and then that policeman would leave you alone.”
After a moment, when I didn’t respond, Tyler said, “I told you we should leave him alone for a minute, Hannah. He just needs to rest.”
“You did not! You did not tell me! Vie, tell him. Tell him he didn’t tell me.”
“Hannah, calm down. Tyler, be nice to your sister.”
They had, most likely, saved my life. That made things more complicated. A couple of months ago, when I had first moved to Vehpese, Tyler and Hannah had lived in the apartment next to mine. For some reason, they had gotten attached to me. Their mom worked at the strip club, and their dad was long gone, so I did what I could to help them. That was fine right up until the moment I managed to get Tyler shot by Tony Galgano. Tony had drawn a gun, planning on shooting me. Tyler had shouted to warn me. I don’t think that Tony had meant to shoot the boy, I really don’t. It didn’t matter, though. If Tony Galgano ever got out of prison, I was going to plant him in a shallow grave.
The worst of the queasiness had passed, so I sat up and uncovered my eyes. Tyler had grown. Not much, but a little. He wore a fleece jacket, and he seemed plenty spry, but I thought I detected a slight stiffness when he moved his left arm. That stiffness was courtesy of a bullet from Tony Galgano. This was the first time I’d seen either kid since the shooting; their mom had moved, and I hadn’t known where they’d gone.
They were both still blond, and both still gap-toothed, but they no longer looked like the kids off the back of a milk carton. Their faces had filled out, and their eyes—both pairs were cornflower blue—had brightened and sharpened. They looked, for the first time since I had known them, like they weren’t growing up on a steady diet of nothing.
“I thought you left,” was the only thing I could think of.
“After Tyler got out of the hospital,” Hannah said, yanking the kite’s plastic wreckage from her brother’s hands, “we had to go live with Grandma. Mom has a job in Montana.” She said it as though it were special, maybe even exotic, instead of being the next state over.
“Gimme that,” Tyler yelled. “That’s mine.”
“Tyler bought it because he says it looks like you,” Hannah said, squealing with laughter. “Vie looks like Thor, Vie looks like Thor.” Then she took off running.
“I did not,” Tyler screamed, his face pink. “You said that, Hannah!” He pitched into a sprint, following the fluttering plastic kite.
And that left me alone, with splinters in my butt, and very confused.
Fred Fort had tried roughing me up once before. He’d never liked me. But today had been different. Today had been serious, deadly serious. If Tyler and Hannah hadn’t showed up—
Groaning, I levered myself off the bench. Tyler and Hannah stopped their chase and immediately heeled me.
“I’ve got to go to work.”
“You work at Bighorn Burger,” Hannah stated.
“Yeah.”
“Vie,” Tyler said, “why was the policeman trying to hurt you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you do something bad?”
“No.”
“I knew you didn’t.”
“Vie, will you come over for dinner?” Hannah asked. She danced in front of me, her blue eyes big and pleading.
“I don’t—”
“Dinner! Dinner! Dinner!” they chanted.
“Yeah, sure.”
“We live at—” Tyler began, then hesitated.
“We live at 187 North 28th Street,” Hannah said. She stuck out her tongue at her brother.
“That’s not fair! I was going to tell him!”
“But I said it first!”
“All right,” I said, squeezing past them. “I’m glad you guys are ok. Be safe.”
“See you soon, Vie!”
They darted back to the playground, the kite dragging along the grass behind them. Massaging the ache in my neck—that blow had been the worst—I made my way to Main Street and followed it north. Austin’s car was gone from the high school parking lot, so I kept walking.
This section of Vehpese was the old downtown: lots of blond brick, lots of display windows with glass that had yellowed slightly with age, and lots of boarded up storefronts. Vehpese did all right for a number of reasons—there were mining jobs nearby, and ranching, and tourism for the Bighorn Mountains. But this section of the town wasn’t benefitting from that money; a new downtown had emerged along the river, packed with trendy coffee shops and boutique expedition gear and all of that stuff. The Outdoor Shop did ok, and through the windows I could see an animatronic trout contorting happily on its plaque, encouraging visitors in a disembodied voice to Fish for the catch of the day. The Spin-Stop had also managed to remain open, although its blacked out glass showed only a pink neon Open sign. And Bighorn Burger did very well, for a number of reasons: it was local, it was fresh, and it managed to beat the chains on price and quality.
All of that was due to the constant efforts of Bighorn Burger’s boss and owner, Sara Miller—my current legal guardian and my boyfriend’s aunt. She ran a very tight ship, but she also had a surprising amount of compassion for a woman who had thrived in a cutthroat business.
Two blocks before I got to Bighorn Burger, an electric blue Charger growled up to the curb, and the window went down. I leaned on the door.
“Where the hell have you been?” Austin asked.
“I got dragged off by Fort. He wanted to talk. Well, actually, he wanted me to confess.”
“He what? Confess to what?”
“Warbrath’s murders, and I guess all the other murders since I showed up in town.”
Austin shook his head. “That’s insane. You’ve been saving people. You’ve been trying to stop Mr. Big Empty.”
“Well, somebody should drop Fred Fort a telegram,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck, “because he has some really strong feelings about the matter. What happened with you and Becca?”
“Deputy Fort showed up after a while. He said you took off and wouldn’t give any more explanation. He asked Becca and me some questions and then told us to get lost. Those were the actual words he used. I dropped Becca at work, took Kaden home, and then I came back here.” He pounded the steering wheel. “Damn it. I should have known you wouldn’t just run off.”
Leaning farther into the Charger, I kissed him quickly. “It’s fine. I’ll have a headache all the way into next month, but it’s fine. I’ve got to get to work.”
“Jump in.”
“For two blocks?”
“It’s two blocks I get to spend with you.”
I grinned and got into the car. Austin’s hand settled casually on my thigh as we pulled into traffic. Sooner than I would have liked, we turned into Bighorn Burger’s parking lot. Austin’s hand slid higher on my leg.
I kissed him, and then once more for good measure, and then I opened the door.
“Hey,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Remember that promise you made?”
“Um.”
“When you wanted me to go to that party at Kaden’s, you promised that you’d let me decide how we were going to make up my birthday.”
I fought the urge to groan. Just a few days before, I had missed Austin’s birthday. No, missed sounds too nice. I hadn’t even known it was his birthday, and I’d missed the signals he was trying to send. What was it going to be? Dinner with his family. It was at least going to be dinner with his family. That might not sound like much, but the one and only time I’d had dinner with them, I’d ended the evening by getting into a fistfight with Jake, Austin’s younger brother.
“I’ve got a lot of—”
“Nope,” he said, smiling easily and kissing me back. “You promised.”
“But I’ve missed like a week of school—”
“Nope.” He kissed me again, longer this time, his stubble burning my cheeks. His fingers moved up the back of my neck, and I winced, and then they drifted just under my bun of long, blond hair. His fingers wove into my hair. The kiss was starting to get hot enough that I was afraid it would light my shoes on fire.
When he broke away, he smiled again and said, “You promised.”
Somewhere in the world, I was pretty sure, there might be a boy who could kiss Austin Miller and still be able to breathe at the end of it. I, however, was not that boy. It took me a moment to find some air again.
“Yeah. Right. Ok, sure.”
“Tomorrow I—”
“It’s Sunday.” Austin held up one finger. “You don’t have work. I already checked.” He held up a second finger. “You don’t have school. As you pointed out, you’ve missed this whole week. Yes, you’re probably going to have a lot of make-up work, but you don’t have it yet.” He held up a third finger. “As soon as cross-country posts who made the cut, you’re going to be crazy busy with practices, so I want to do it this weekend.”
“If I’m even on the team. You didn’t see how bad it was.”
“Kaden told me that Coach Z loves you.”
“Kaden said what?”
“And don’t change the subject. Tomorrow. My birthday make-up.”
Then I saw it in his eyes: he was laughing at me. Inside, where I couldn’t hear him, but he was still laughing at me. I had a sinking feeling. No, this was going to be a lot worse than dinner with his family. Much, much worse. There was only one thing I could think of. One thing where Austin had seen me at my most helpless and vulnerable. One thing that he and his family loved to do.
“We’re not going riding, are we?”
Now he really did laugh, and it burst out of him with such force that I wanted to shake him. “No, we’re not going riding.”
“Dear God,” I whispered. “What?”
His smile could have bounced off the moon and back. “We’re going fishing.”