I grab my keys and start the engine. The cherry red car purrs as I pull out of the driveway and zip to the take-out place. When I’m about to pull into the parking lot, a cop pulls up behind me, with his red lights flashing. I wasn’t speeding. Damn. It must be true that red cars get pulled over more than any other color.

I pull over and throw the car into park, careful to keep my hands on the steering wheel. Dad told me to never go for my purse or glove box until the cop was standing by the car. The guy’s got to see my hands or he might shoot me, well that’s not exactly the way Dad said it, but it’s what he meant.

I push the button on the window just as the cop walks over. He’s wearing that dark uniform that makes me want to run screaming into my room and hide under my bed.

He’s not that guy. Stop it, Hallie, I scold myself, but it doesn’t help. By now, my hands are shaking.

“License and registration, please.” The guy is late thirties, and kind of scary looking. By scary, I mean it looks like he could take my little body and fold it accordion style and shove it in his trunk. The guy is all lean muscle and he looks pissed off. I can’t imagine what I’ve done.

I reach for the glove box to pull out the papers Jon mentioned, but all I can find is the book about the car and the last oil change notice. No papers. No registration. My heart lurches. Fuck. I start thinking that Jon played me, but even he isn’t that low. And the cop hasn’t asked me to step out of the car or anything. My taillight is out or something, that’s all. This is nothing.

I dig through my purse and manage to pull out my little wallet. My face turns ashen when I see the empty slot where my driver’s license should have been. I glance over at the policeman and say softly, “It’s gone.”

“You don’t have a license or registration on this vehicle?” He says something into his shoulder after hearing a buzz in his earpiece. “Step out of the car, ma’am.”

I’m shaking now. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Someone took my license. I have one.”

He ignores me and backs me into the hood. His sunglasses come off. When he tucks them away, he asks, “Do you know you’re driving a stolen vehicle?”

“It’s not stolen.”

“Oh?”

I shake my head, ready to cry. Jon wouldn’t do this to me, he wouldn’t. “Jonathan Ferro sold me this car a couple of days ago for ten thousand dollars. I haven’t had a chance to file the paperwork yet. I thought I had a few days?”

The cop nods. He turns me to face the hood and pats me down. “Nice story. The car is worth a lot more than that. If you’re going to lie at least make the story sound convincing.”

“It’s true! Jon sold it to me for ten grand. Ask him! I’m not lying.”

I feel cold metal bite into my wrists as handcuffs slip around my arms. I start to panic. My heart races too fast and the world becomes a blur. I can’t stop talking, pleading, and as the cop shoves me in the back of his car the whole awful event replays in vivid detail in my mind.

I close my eyes and try to shut it out, but the colors brighten and the sounds from over a decade ago ring loudly in my ears as tears streak down my cheeks. The past and the present slam together with such violence that I can’t stand it.

My mother swears at me before shoving me in the closet. Little hands wrap around me, and I know my baby brother, Anthony, is terrified. He’s grown so thin that his bones feel sharp under my palms. He cries until he goes silent, until he falls asleep, until my mother has had her fill of drugs and lovers. I hear her laugh. I could never make her happy like that. I hear the sounds of sex, until something changes. The normal party isn’t normal anymore.

The policeman that pulled me from the closet tried to take my brother’s lifeless body from my arms. I didn’t understand. I protected him from her. I watched out for Anthony, but after everything I did, it wasn’t enough. They thought I killed him at first. They shoved me into the back of the car and I screamed at them until I couldn’t cry anymore. I wanted my brother, but they said he was dead.

I didn’t believe them.

Now, I have trouble believing anyone and this cop has opened a wound that is so deep it cuts me to the bone. No, it wasn’t the cop—it was Jon.

I can’t help the shivering, but I don’t cry. They book me and ask me questions that I’ve heard before. The paint never changes in places like this. The people are the same. The smell is identical. I stare blankly, trying to keep my mind in one piece, but I feel it cracking bit by bit.

Who will save Maggie? If I lose it, who’s there for her? No one. Pull it together, Hallie.

I get one call, so I call the person they’re trying to keep me away from, the man who’s blackmailing me for sex.

When he answers the phone, Bryan sounds weary. I don’t know how else to put it. I would have thought he was sleeping, but there’s something in his voice that tells me he hasn’t slept in a long time. “Suffolk County PD. Let me guess, is this Jon or Trystan?”

“Neither,” my voice is so small, so mousey that it barely makes a sound.

I hear him shift and Bryan sounds more alert when he replies, “Hallie?”

“Come get me. I’ll owe you. Anything you want, just come get me.” I hand the phone back to the officer at the desk and am led back to my cell.