“What, was it for me?” he joked, starting to unravel it.

“No!” I barked, snatching it out of his hands and shoving it into my bakery bag.

Brock stared at me for a minute, his eyebrows raising in surprise and then in a questioning look.

“Just tax stuff,” I mumbled.

Not buying my unconvincing reply, Brock shrugged and said, “Anyway, got your car all hooked up. We’ll have to drive a bit slow down the bumpy old road, but we should be fine.”

Brock was better than his word. Our drive was smooth, easy, quiet. All of Brock’s attempts at conversation, I shot down. I couldn’t afford to get in another nice long talk with him; I would never want to leave. No, this was a job and nothing more, and I planned on keeping it that way.

And yet, the farther away from the cabin we got, the more a sick feeling twisted in my stomach.

By the time we got to New Moon Café, where I’d told Brock to drop me off, I felt downright nauseous.

“Wait here. This’ll just be a sec,” he said, hurrying out and unlatching my car. When he got back in, we sat in the car in silence for a few seconds before he spoke. “Alexa…I’m really glad I met you. I...you know where to find me.”

“Goodbye, Brock,” I said hollowly, opening the door and walking out.

When I turned to look at him, he was still motionless in the pickup, staring at me, as if he wanted to stay and would stay if only I asked him. But I turned my back on him once more and walked to the café’s door. When I turned back, the truck was gone. Brock was gone.

I hurried to my car, and when I got there, I reached into my pocket.

Nothing. I reached into the other pocket and found the same. I ripped off my coat and shook it over the pavement. I emptied my bakery bag on the ground, flipped and shook every item like an addict looking for a lost stash. In a way, it wasn’t all that different. I was screwed without that fuel pump, and yet there was no denying that it was gone. I had lost it, probably on our ill-begotten trek out to the pond.

Now my make-believe had become real. My car really was out of service, and I was far away from the garage.

What was I supposed to do now?

I took a miserable look at the Half Moon Café and rushed inside, past the empty tables, to the back, where I went into the flowery-wallpapered bathroom.

There, crouched over the toilet, I heaved, over and over again. Nothing came out, though I felt better afterward. I guessed what was making me feel sick had left in the maroon pickup.

In a dreamlike state, I wandered back to the counter, told the red-haired girl with the crooked smile I wanted four cookies, paid for them, and slumped into a seat. Only halfway through my third cookie did I notice I was at the same table as last time, the one under the picture of the mountain ridge. It was funny, being at the same table when I was already a different person than the last time I had sat there.

A traitorous current of uncertainty was coursing through me, making me devour the cookies rapid-fire, tearing off chunk after chunk until my mouth had all it could chew. When I was finished, having scarfed down every last cookie, I was left with nothing but my phone in my hand and the realization of what I had to do next.

I typed “East Street Garage” into the search bar and then called the number shown. They picked up on the sixth ring and replied with a terse “yeah, yeah, all right” when I explained that I’d need a tow to their location since my car was “somehow” missing the fuel pump.

Then, once I’d hung up and the next, bigger choice was before me, my fingers dialed again before my mind could think better of it.

“Hello?” said Russell Snow.

“Hi. This is Alex Combs. I did it. I found Brock Anderson, went to the cabin he’s staying at, and got pictures of some illegal guns he has. I’ll be sending you the pictures over email shortly. I just have to get home first.”

“Ah, excellent. Where is he?”

“Nederland.”

“And you’re still there?”

“Yeah. My car’s temporarily out of service. Needs a part replaced before it can get back on the road. They’re coming to tow it now.”

“I can give you a ride home.”

His answer came so fast and easily that I had to take a minute to think about it.

“Really? No. I should be fine.”

“Please. It would be my pleasure. You’re in town now?”

“At the New Moon Café, but—”

“I’ll be there in about two hours. I’ll bring the money.”

Then the dial tone signaled that the matter was settled.

I stared at my phone for a minute. Then I went back to the café’s front counter and ordered a sandwich, realizing I’d eaten nothing but cookies for almost 24 hours. It was going to be a long wait. Already my stomach was churning with ominousness. Clearly, staying unoccupied while waiting for the man I wasn’t sure I wanted to arrive wasn’t going to be an option.

The wait dragged on even longer than I’d expected. I returned my mom’s call (“Yes, Mom, I’m fine. Just working on a really big case. Yes, I’ll come down for dinner tomorrow. Yes, I love you too.”) and Tiffany’s (“Hey! Sorry about taking so long getting back to you. Been consumed by this crazy case. Yeah, things are looking up. Dinner Wednesday? Definitely!”)

And then, finally, just when two hours had rolled around to three and I’d given up on Russell Snow entirely, in he came.

Even the second time seeing him was jarring. He was taller than I remembered, more angular. His all black suit was hilariously out of place in the quaint little café; his whole body was, really. His face was all sharp planes that looked tacked together. The smile he tried to give me looked more sinister than if he had scowled outright. He sat across from me and bared his teeth into another troubling, yellow smile.

“Knew you could do it. Knew you were different,” he said in his cold voice.

“So you’re sure this guy is dangerous?” I found myself asking in response.

The thin white lines of his eyebrows lowered.

“You went to his cabin, you said?”

“I… He just doesn’t seem like the ‘unhinged criminal’ type is all.”

An unseemly smile crept over his face, and he gave my hand an icy pat.

“The worst ones never do.”

He took out an envelope and said, “Here’s your $2,000 as agreed upon.” Then he paused. “Can I see the pictures?”

“Sure,” I said, taking out my phone.

When he saw the guns, that same smile returned.

“Yes, yes.”

I took the phone away, perhaps too fast, because he gave my hand another pat, this time resting his bones over my fingers.

“Miss Combs, if only you knew what this vicious man has done.”

My gaze was rapt on his boney hands: their snakes of tendons, knobs of knuckles, yellow half-moons of nails.

“Try me.”

At this, his gaze grew hard. Russell Snow rose.

“You ready for that ride?”

His hand was clutching the envelope so hard the knuckles and tendons were standing out and white. His face was just as strained looking. Clearly, I was going to have to go along with Russell Snow’s ride in order to get paid.

“Yes,” I said.

With that, he strode out the café door. I hurried after him to find him at a fully blacked-out SUV.

Catching my stare, he grinned.

“Can’t be too careful.”

Just then a tow truck stopped, barring my way.

“That tan one yours?” a young ball-capped guy asked from the open window, pointing to my car.

“Yes,” I said. “Do you need anything else from me?”

The boy shook his sandy blond head.

“Just call us up and we can let ya know when we’re finished.”

Then the tow truck continued toward my car.

“Miss Combs!” a voice said.

It was Russell Snow, now in his car and waving me over with the hand holding the envelope.

I kept my gaze on it as I slid into the passenger side. Just a few more minutes and I’d have the money I so desperately needed and had more than earned.

But as soon as the door closed beside me, Russell locked all the doors, started the engine, and said, “You don’t mind if I run an errand first.”

I didn’t answer his question that was really a demand; he was already pulling out onto the road anyway, driving out of Nederland. I stared out the window dully at the town I’d never see again now that I’d delivered what may have been a good man to the most unseemly creep I’d ever encountered. Was going against what I knew was right really worth the money?

“So you never said where he was,” Russell said.

“Didn’t I?”

“Nope. It was part of the agreement.”

I almost asked him, “Was it?” before I said, “Oh. Well, I’ll need to go home and look over a map to retrace my steps.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face fall. Abruptly, he pulled the car over.

“I haven’t told you the full story,” he said, spreading his fingers on one hand and then bringing them in again.

“Oh?” I said.

“This job is important, really important, for personal reasons. It wasn’t just those guns Brock’s been involved in. He stole from my girl, my Kaya. I swore to her I’d get her jewelry back. The longer it takes, the less chance there is that it’ll be there. If I don’t have an address to give the police now, who knows how long it will take. I know you just stumbled on it, but the facts remain.”

I stayed silent, my gaze locked on my motionless fingers.

“I”—his voice cracked—“I don’t know what to do. Kaya has lost hope in me. My friends have all given up too. I…I’m out of options, Miss Combs.”

As unseemly and unwelcome as I found Russell Snow, my gaze was inescapably drawn to him. His face was even hollower, even paler. The line on his forehead looked like a full-on dent. It was incredible, and yet there was no denying it. Russell Snow was telling the truth. He was broken up about it.

I swallowed and shifted my gaze to my other hand. Really, it was wrong of me to withhold information from my client. He had paid as promised after all, and it wouldn’t hurt telling him the address now.

I cleared my throat and turned to Russell.

“He was living in a cabin in the woods,” I said. “You get there from a street connected to the parking lot of the East Street Garage.”

His face softened, and I let out a sigh of relief.

A few minutes later, we were approaching the East Street Garage where it had all begun. My ache of nostalgia transformed into a twist of suspicion as our car made a turn into the lot.

I turned around, stifling my gasp at what I saw: two other blacked-out cars behind us, exactly the same model and make.