The door to the garage opened, and I heard Gentry and Marcus coming up the steps into the kitchen.

“Yea, I am a knight,” Gentry was telling Marcus. He said it with the k, k-night, and Marcus parroted it back to him that way.

“But k-nights have swords. Do you have a sword?”

“I have more than one sword.”

“You do?” Marcus said.

“What does that mean? Not completely innocent?” Mom said.

“Shh.” I didn’t want to get into it with her when Marcus might overhear us. “There goes my plan to ask Emma to watch Marcus for a little bit. The police were up at the apartment, so I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay there.”

“You should stay here.”

“How? There’s not even any place for us to sit down, let alone lie down.”

“That’s not true. You know there’s a sofa bed in the sunroom.”

The way Mom said it, so sure of herself, it gave me goosebumps. Even if you could get in the sunroom—you couldn’t—I doubted there was a sofa you’d want to sleep on. I stood up, because the whole house was quicksand, and I could feel it sucking me in.

“Probably we’ll get a motel room tonight,” I said.

“That’s silly to spend money on a motel. We can figure out something here.”

“No, I think it’d be better to take Marcus somewhere else. I don’t like all those reporters out there.”

“My lady,” Gentry said from the kitchen doorway. “I offer thee and thy page sanctuary at my father’s keep.”

“Okay.” I didn’t hesitate, because I had to get away from the quicksand. After I escaped, I could figure out what to do.

“Are we going?” Marcus said.

“Not yet, buddy. Grandma has some people coming over who need to talk to her.”

Marcus crawled up into the spot on Mom’s chair I’d just pried myself out of. He kissed her cheek and said, “When’s Mommy coming?”

“Soon, sugar pie. Soon,” Mom said. How many times had she told us that lie about Dad? Soon, when what she really meant was Never.

“Do you want to watch a video?” I asked Marcus. He didn’t move from where he was lying against Mom’s side, but he nodded.

“Gentry, do you mind taking Marcus back out to the garage? Just for a little while?”

“Nay, my lady,” he said. “’Tis my honor.”

“It’s not too warm out there, is it?”

“Nay, ’tis pleasant enough.”

Whether it was pleasant or not, I didn’t want Marcus there when we talked to the police. I got the iPad out of my backpack and gave it to Marcus, who followed Gentry out to the garage, even though he didn’t look very happy about it.

“He’s very charming,” Mom said.

“Who?”

“Gentry. He’s very charming. Where did you find him?”

“Oh god,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

CHAPTER 5

Zee

   Where did I find Gentry?

At a physical therapy clinic about three months after Nicholas and I had our huge fight, and I laid his Harley down in rush-hour traffic on Kellogg.

Right after the wreck, while I was still in the hospital, Nicholas had moved home to his parents’ in Merriam. I couldn’t go back to our apartment by myself. Hell, I couldn’t even afford it by myself. I couldn’t move in with Mom, because you could barely walk through her house without a cast on your leg. I was back to being the kind of homeless I’d been since I was sixteen.

LaReigne rescued me. She had come to the hospital while my leg was still in traction. She took my hand, just like when I was little, and she’d said, “I’m taking you home.” So I’d moved in with her and Loudon, which was so delightful I used to fantasize about falling down the stairs and breaking my neck. Marcus had been only two and a half then, and I was sleeping on the other twin bed in his room and listening to his parents fight nonstop.

Two months after the wreck, I was out of my leg cast, but still in a brace and walking on crutches. Twice a week, LaReigne had dropped me off for PT and picked me up after, because I wasn’t cleared to drive. Even if I had been, my car got repo’d after the wreck, because I lost my job and stopped paying on the loan.

The day I met Gentry, LaReigne didn’t show up after my appointment. Every time I texted her, she’d said, I’m sorry, I’ll be there in a little bit. After I’d been sitting in the clinic lobby for three hours, I got the text I’d known was coming. I’m sorry, Z. Loudon took the car and I don’t know where he is. Can you get an Uber or something?

I didn’t have money for a cab, so I’d looked up bus routes on my phone, but the closest the bus could get me was two miles from the condo. Two miles on crutches. I went out to the parking lot, and there was a guy standing next to his truck. I’d seen him in the waiting room a bunch of times. In the beginning, he’d had his arm in a sling, but at this point he just had athletic tape on his arm and shoulder. He was a nondescript white guy. Cargo shorts, tank top, stocky, medium height, dark hair. I never would have recognized him, except he had the worst haircut I’d ever seen on another human being. Not like he’d cut it himself, but like he’d let a toddler cut it with a pair of garden shears, repeatedly.

As I came down the sidewalk, he stepped away from his truck and bowed to me. I will never forget what he said: “My lady. Thy servant.”

I stopped, because there was nobody else he could be talking to, but I had no idea what he meant. He straightened up, but kept his eyes down.

“My lady. If thou wilt allow me to help thee,” he said. When I didn’t answer, he got down on one knee, like he meant to propose to me. “’Tis my honor to carry thee whither thou desirest.”

I was staring at him, but he never looked up. He stayed there with his bare knee on the asphalt, one hand over his heart and the other offered to me palm up. Was I supposed to take it?

He looked off to his left and nodded.

“Yea. I see, man. I am not blind,” he said. Then he went back to looking at my legs. “Thou art wounded, my lady, and I would thee serve.”

I almost kept walking, because the level of crazy there was so high, but then I’d remembered my fantasy about falling down the stairs. If this guy was a serial killer, it would save me the trouble of breaking my own neck.

“Is this your truck?” I said, because I didn’t speak whither thou desirest.