That night, Angel’s words echo in my mind. I’m good at setting up cons from moments of opportunity, but this situation is pretty much the opposite of an opportunity. An opportunity is like when a dog sees a plate of fresh meat on a too-low coffee table, and he just pokes his head over and scarfs it all down while no one is looking. That’s what I was good at.

This is...this is something else. This is that same dog being locked in a kennel, and trying to find a way to pop the lock through the cold metal wires with just the tip of his nose and tongue.

“You’re not a damn dog,” I hiss to myself. “Be a man, get shit done.”

I start the truck. Hoping Angel won’t wake when she hears it. She’s sound asleep in the hotel. I convinced her not to go back to work for a few more days, but I’ve at least got to do something to try to pop the lock on my cage.

It’s not that I intended to keep running or keep hiding. I was just waiting for that opportunity to show itself. I thought if I just waited long enough and kept my ears and eyes open, something would show itself. Some loose thread to pull on.

But there’s been nothing. The luckiest break I had was the fact that Napier didn’t seem to want to make a big show of catching me.

I laugh to myself. That shithead probably was afraid I’d be too slick for him to catch me. It’s true too, if my goal were to just hide and run away, he’d never find me. Sure, my life would be a lot worse for it, but I could get away from him easily if I wanted. If he makes a big show of trying to catch me–and then can’t–it makes him look like the fool he is. He doesn’t want extra scrutiny on him when he’s stealing drug money and cutting deals with biker gangs.

I drive toward Lake Diurna and away from the city. It will bring me closer to Napier, but I’m not going to defeat him and clear my name without going back into that town.

I drive down the winding forest road where I first met Angel, and I realize that she was my chance to clear my name. She was that con-man opportunity that fell right into my lap. If I had really wanted to clear my name above all else and at all costs, I could have used her to do it. I could have had her try to get info from Napier for me, or used her to throw him off, or any number of things.

But I’d sooner go to prison again, forever this time, than use her like that. Turns out I’m a shit con man, but a good–no, I’ll stop short of “good person.” I’ve just got it bad for Angel. Selfishly wanting to protect her above all else doesn’t make me a good guy in general, or some hero, it just means that she’s damn important to me. And that’s putting it mildly. I wouldn’t want to put it any stronger than that–wouldn’t want to use that strong word right on the tip of my tongue–because if things go south and I get locked up, it’s easier to have never said that word at all.

I pull onto the dirt road, and I drive down as the truck jostles me around. I’m trying to be sneaky, but I keep my headlights on all the same. Nothing makes you look more suspicious than driving without headlights. The truck is my disguise. No one should be looking for Terry’s old rusted truck.

I drive past some mobile homes with nice “lawn decorations.” Rusted cars on cinder blocks, it’s cliché as hell, but always a real feature of neighborhoods like this one. As the road gets closer to the creek, the houses get slightly nicer, with features like garages instead of car ports, or paved driveways.

I stop just short of the house. The one where it all went wrong. The brothers’ house–where they were killed and I was framed.

I watch it for a good while. It’s still officially a crime scene, I’m sure of that. It’s only been a few days, and even if it’s just drug dealers who died, a murder is a murder.

But since it wasn’t a pretty blonde lady in a big house on a cul-de-sac who died, there aren’t tons of police cars around this long after the murders. The forensics team isn’t going to do another comb-over, looking for the tiniest of loose hairs. There’s no money for that.

It just looks like another house. I watch it for a long while, at least an hour, and when I don’t see a single car or person come in or out, I get out of the truck.

I’ve got a camera in hand, an older handheld digital one like everyone used to have before phones got really good at taking pictures. I never trusted a camera that the police could track me with.

There’s police tape up on the front door, but I go along toward the back. I step right into a muddy groove. I look down and realize I’m standing in a motorcycle track.

I point the camera down and take a photo. It’s dark out, so the flash goes off. It’s not ideal to be taking flash photos outside, but if any neighbors see me, they’ll probably just think it’s another cop taking more photos. The houses on this road are far apart anyway, and the brothers’ lot is divided from the next by a fairly thick line of trees.

I get a few more shots of the tracks from the bikes. I remember now how they all just kind of rolled right up onto the brothers’ lawn. I guess if you know you’re going to kill someone, you don’t care if you trash their lawn.

If Napier’s version of what happened didn’t include the biker gang, then how will he explain these tracks? The neighbors would have heard the bikes roll through too.

I frown. It’s too easy. It wouldn’t make sense for Napier to try to lie about something that so obviously happened. His version probably just changes the time they were there. Maybe they left right before I arrived?

I go through to the backyard. This is where I ran through. Into the forest behind the house. The backyard is a sloping hill that ends where the trees start. That sloping hill gets really steep soon enough–that’s where I fell.

I get down on my hands and knees right by the porch, and I start combing through the snow with my gloved hands. This is the shitty part.

I need to find the fucking shell casings from when Napier took shots at me. According to his version of events, I killed the brothers, and then I ran. According to him, he wasn’t there at all. They just found my prints there, which were on file due to my record. So according to his “official” version of events, there should not be any shell casings from Napier’s gun anywhere near here. I know the real story. I know he shot at me, while standing in this very backyard.

I’m not some forensics genius, but I know that shell casings can be traced like a fingerprint, right back to Napier’s gun. No one would have gone looking for the casing since the murders happened inside. Napier might have had the foresight to have grabbed them right after he fired, but I doubt it. I heard him chasing after me. He didn’t stop after I fell off the cliff either, he circled around. Then snow fell, and he couldn’t risk being found digging around a murder scene as the sun rose.

Snow. The whole yard is covered in snow. At least a foot thick, and it’s not a small yard. If the shell casings are there, they’re buried beneath the snow, and maybe hidden under the grass as well.

I’ve got a lot of digging to do.