"What? Men and women can't be friends? What are we? In high school?"

I didn't answer. I was thinking about Jenny and how I'd gone ballistic over her having lunch with a guy. Pretty much the same thing I was doing here. Actually less egregious, because every time I looked at Nicki I couldn't help wondering what she looked like naked.

"What is wrong with everyone up here?" Nicki asked. "I'm not looking for a boyfriend. Trust me. I've had my fill."

Draining my pint, I stood and stuffed the sheet in my back pocket.

"Wait. Where are you going?"

"Home, Nicki. I appreciate you getting this information for me." I looked around the barroom, which had now started to fill with a steady stream of prosecutors, clerks, and public defenders. "I'm sure you'll make plenty of friends."

She c.o.c.ked her head.

"We're real friendly up here."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

PARKED UNDER A street lamp, I sat in my idling truck a few blocks from the bar. Strong winds swept down the street with the late-afternoon cold front, whistling outside the gla.s.s, kicking up snow. I pulled the piece of paper, rereading the address for the North River Inst.i.tute, trying to reconcile conflicting reports. A diversion program? Basically a rehab masquerading as detention center. That's how Nicki had pitched it. For Brian Olisky? A band geek who had been arrested, arraigned, and sentenced in less than six hours. There's swift justice. Then there's cruel-and-unusual warp speed. Death Row inmates wait longer than that. What had Brian done to warrant this kind of response? I pictured that skinny, scrawny, pencil neck, imagined how scared he must be inside those prison walls. He wouldn't last a night.

Maybe Nicki had oversold it. Maybe North River was a residential facility designed to intervene before teens went down a dark path. Except Brian Olisky was as far from the dark side as I was from domestic bliss. I had no way of knowing what the Inst.i.tute was really like without checking it out, firsthand, a mission I had no interest in undertaking. Because this wasn't my problem.

Did I need to call Donna Olisky and explain her son wasn't coming home tonight? Or did she already know? I wasn't sure which scenario bothered me more.

I checked my phone to see how many of her calls I'd missed. After the disaster with Jenny, I'd seen my phone light up several times. I'd stopped paying attention after a while. When I scrolled the log, I saw the calls from Donna stopped early afternoon. The rest were from Charlie, texts and voice mails urging me to head over the mountain and catch him at the Dubliner if Jenny hadn't returned.

I was relieved I didn't have to break the news to Donna. Someone from the courthouse must've already done that. Why else would she suddenly stop calling? Sucked for her. But my job was done. My stomach knotted up, I toppled a few antacids, choking down the dry chalk, trying to locate Route 302 in the dark.

Steady precipitation returned, thick sleet and wet snow glopping the windshield like spitb.a.l.l.s from a juvenile G.o.d. My wipers labored through the slush, little motors grinding gears until I could smell the burn. I didn't know this area so well. Whenever I'd had to bail out Chris, I'd come during the daytime. That was ages ago. Tonight I was relying on GPS to guide the way. I still didn't have the hang of the technology, G.o.dd.a.m.n screen rotating every time I picked up the phone to get a closer look, and the robotic vocal instructions to "turn left here" always came a beat too late. Felt like I was going in circles.

Keeping my eyes peeled for deer, which had a bad habit of jumping out and standing in the middle of the road, I was so focused and preoccupied over Brian Olisky and Jenny and where my life was headed, I didn't spot the cruiser on my tail. Even when the lights flashed and air horn bleated, it didn't register they were talking to me.

I slowed to the side. Blinding high beams shot through the back window of my truck, smacking off the rearview. I c.o.c.ked the mirror to shield my eyes. Doors opened and slammed shut. I leaned over to fish my registration from the glove compartment. After the day I'd had, last thing I felt like doing was dealing with Podunk PD for rolling through a stop sign.

I hadn't been pulled over on a routine traffic stop in a while and couldn't find my paperwork, too many crinkled receipts and ATM statements, napkins from the Dunkin' Donuts that I kept for when Aiden's nose ran, which, as a little kid living on the tundra, was invariably. I swatted aside papers in the glove compartment, growing agitated over my lack of organization. A hard knock rapped off the gla.s.s.

"Hold on," I said. "Jesus." Without looking up, I reached back with my left hand to unroll the window. Waiting for the requisite "Do you know why I stopped you, sir?" I continued digging around, wading deep in the dish, until I found the registration, crumpled yellow paper like a McDonald's cheeseburger wrapper. I sat back up, expecting a balding reject picked last in gym cla.s.s. Instead I got highway patrol buzz cut and a pair of crazy eyes better suited for mixed martial arts than law enforcement.

"Put your hands on the wheel where I can see them." The quiet seething in his voice should've been my first clue this wasn't an ordinary stop.

"No problem," I said, flipping the paperwork in the center console. Sudden movement, a stupid move. Sig Sauer unholstered and aimed at my skull, the officer ripped open the door, reached in, and flung me to the ground. I hit the frozen tarmac with the full force of a belly flop on a winter lake, knocking the wind out of me. I pushed myself to my hands and knees, waving a hand to let me catch my breath so I could explain.

I heard more footsteps in the snow, my vision tearing up, blurry. A pair of boots came to rest on each side of me.

No one was interested in explanations.

The pair alternated kicks to my stomach, flanks, and sternum. The unexpected force made me throw up. One of them grabbed me by the scruff, lifting me off the asphalt like a misbehaving mutt, hoisting me to unsteady feet. He spun me around, pushing me against my truck, face-first. My forehead cracked against the frame. Feet kicked apart, I was patted down. My head rang and I tasted blood in my mouth.

Satisfied I wasn't carrying any weapons, they spun me back around, where a high-powered flashlight shone in my eyes.

"You have a hard time following orders, eh, boy? You been drinking tonight?"

I squinted and tried to focus on the face talking to me. I couldn't tell if it was the same crazy-eyed psycho or his partner. Not that it made any difference.

"He's talking to you, boy. You been drinking?"

"I had a half a beer. About an hour ago." I still couldn't even see who the h.e.l.l I was talking to. I hated that I couldn't see a face.

"Don't lie to me. n.o.body throws up from half a beer."

I didn't mention the roundhouse kicks to my lower intestines. By now I was pretty sure no one gave a s.h.i.t what I thought.

"Except f.a.ggots. That it? You some kind of f.a.ggot? Can't hold your liquor?"

"Nah, he ain't a f.a.ggot. He was just in the Chop Shop, chatting up that pretty girl."

"Nicki," his partner said, nice and slow. The way he said her name made it clear he knew her.

"He's talking to you, boy."

I didn't hear a question in there, but "Yeah," I said, "my friend. Nicki. I mean, I just met her."

"I think Nicki has enough friends. You got me?"

When they'd first pulled me from the truck and began kicking the s.h.i.t out of me, I hadn't processed what I'd done. Didn't have much time to think through scenarios while getting my kidneys dislodged. Maybe someone robbed the Price Chopper or Qwik Stop. Mistaken ident.i.ty. Everyone up here drives a truck. Weirder things had happened. Maybe tonight was just the wrong night to be driving a Chevy on this road. All I knew: they had the guns and the badges, and nothing I said was helping my cause. With that warning, though, I had my reason. Just my luck. A jealous ex who also happens to be a cop.

When I didn't answer right away, I felt the other one close ranks. "He asked you a question."

"Yeah," I said, "I got you. Enough friends."

With the flashlight blazing in my eyes and the searing pain in my abdomen, I couldn't focus, and I stopped trying. I only knew these cops weren't like the cops in Ashton. We were on a desolate road, no houses, no street lamps, just bramble weeds and briar patch. I hadn't seen a car since I'd been stopped. Deep runoff ditches ran the gamut each side, a permanent resting spot for roadkill deer. Let the carca.s.s decompose back to the elements. No one was coming down here looking for the dead.

One of them had my wallet.

"Jay Porter," he read. "75 Genoa. Plasterville."

His partner repeated my name and address, the implication clear: they knew who I was and where to find me. I'd pegged that girl for bad news the moment I met her. Could smell trouble on her from ten feet away.

The cop flipped me back the wallet. Of course I wasn't ready to catch it, and I couldn't see jack s.h.i.t anyway. The thing bounced off my chest and flopped to the ground. I didn't flinch, for fear of a steel-toe boot and fractured eye socket. I stood statue still until the light switched off.

I waited in the darkness as footsteps retreated. Even then, I didn't move until the squad car K-turned, taking off down the road, in the other direction.

"What do you think they wanted?" Charlie asked, swiping a chicken wing through the ranch dressing.

After my run-in with the Longmont cops, I'd driven straight over the mountain-or rather around it-to the Dubliner, shaken up and not wanting to be alone. Sometimes walking into a dark, empty house by yourself is more than you can stand.

"No idea." I didn't feel like going into my meeting with Nicki at the Chop Shop, which would prompt more questions about my wife and life.

We sat outside on the tiki porch, Charlie enjoying his ice-cold beer in the ice and cold, licking microwaved BBQ sauce off his fingers, savoring flavors like he was dining on grade A, choice cut. I was shivering b.a.l.l.s. My stomach muscles ached, throat raw from retching and breathing fire. My attempts to quit smoking had proved as successful as my efforts to play family man. Now back up to over a pack a day, I exhibited no signs of slowing down.

"So they pull you over. Kick the s.h.i.t out of you. Then let you go?"

"Pretty much." I regretted mentioning the incident to Charlie, but you can't show up looking like I did without offering some explanation.

"Weird."

I fired another cigarette. I couldn't be certain that cop had dated Nicki. He sure seemed to have a thing for her. Even if it was one-way, Fatal Attraction s.h.i.t, I wasn't calling to find out.

"Maybe you should talk to Turley."

"What for?"

"He's a cop."

"Being a police officer is not like being a member of the f.u.c.king moose lodge."

"I know but maybe he can reach out. Y'know, vouch for you."

"Vouch for what? Being okay to drive through their s.h.i.t-heel town? Trust me. I'm not going back to Longmont anytime soon."

"Why were you out there anyway?"

"Favor. For a friend." I left it there. Charlie didn't press what or for whom.

After a few minutes, he said, "Isn't Longmont where your brother stayed sometimes?

"Yeah. They have a Y over there. Your point?"

"Chris was always getting in trouble. Maybe they knew about you from one of his screw-jobs."

"Possible." I doubted it. That beat-down felt far more personal.

"Isn't that where your brother met that girlfriend of his? What was her name? The one you talked to last year when he went missing? Cat something?"

"Kitty. Katherine. I don't know her last name. I'm not sure they were dating. She was a junkie, too. Chris met her there though, yeah. What are you getting at?"

"I'm not getting at anything. Just trying to have a conversation with my friend who showed up looking like he'd gone twelve rounds with one of the Klitschkos."

"Sorry." I was being a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I still stewed over Jenny and neighbor Stephen, my inability to do a d.a.m.n thing about it.

"How are things with Jenny?" Charlie asked, picking my thoughts out of the radio waves. "You able to patch things back up?"

"Not exactly."

Charlie waited for the rest. Clipped answers weren't going to cut it. I filled him in on my macho bulls.h.i.t at Lynne's. How I'd threatened to punch a guy in the head for eating lunch with my wife. Charlie could usually find the silver lining in my storm cloud, fake an attempt that this too shall pa.s.s. Not this time.

"d.a.m.n," was all he said before turning away to sift through the bird bone graveyard.

"Yeah, I know. I f.u.c.ked up. You don't have to remind me. Having my mother-in-law whispering in my wife's ear isn't helping." Lynne couldn't come right out and tell Jenny she was better off without me-Jenny, no matter how mad she was at me, would never tolerate her mom openly disparaging the father of her child-but Lynne could still snake the gardens, plant subtle seeds of discontent. Sow enough of them, then she sits back and waits for the things to bloom next time I say something stupid. Which, in my case, was only a matter of time.

"What are you going to do?" Charlie asked.

"What can I do? Jenny ordered me to stay away. I can't go all caveman clubbing down doors and dragging her back. I can't let Aiden see me like that again."

Charlie didn't say anything.

"I don't get it. This was all I wanted, man. Jenny and my son. The three of us together. A family. And now that I have it, every move I make just seems to make things worse. Even when I manage to do something right-like breaking this case at work and putting myself in line for a promotion-I still screw it up. I went up there to tell Jenny the good news in person. We can move to Concord, get out of here. Get away from all-" I swept my arm out over the breadth of my hometown "-this." I drained my pint. "Maybe it's not meant to be."

"What?"

"Jenny and me. A contented, regular life. Peace."

Charlie slapped me on the back. "You want to crash at my place again?"

"No. Thanks, man." I'd only had the one beer. "I have work in the morning." I'd burned up whatever favor I'd curried with DeSouza by taking off the whole afternoon. I couldn't do anything else to jeopardize this promotion.

I wasn't looking forward to going back to an empty house, any more than I was waking up at the a.s.s crack of dawn and heading back into that claptrap of an office. In fact, when I gazed into my future, all I saw was dread on the horizon. That little light of mine, Concord, wasn't a perk any longer. I now needed it for the win.

Driving back to Plasterville, a song came over the radio. "Your Love" by The Outfield, this old song from the '80s that had been a running joke between Jenny and me ever since high school. I used to sing it to her when we first started dating, and later on, too, because it always made her laugh. The song was about the singer's girlfriend, Jenny, being out of town, and so he invites a younger girl over to spend the night. I'd tease Jenny, belting out the opening line: "Jenny's on a vacation far away . . ." I have a terrible voice, and Jenny would tell me to stop, the song's message awful, but she'd giggle anyway. Except when I listened to the words tonight, I realized I'd gotten it wrong all these years. The girl's name in the song wasn't Jenny at all; it was Josie. I'd been singing to the wrong girl.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE MORNING HAD already gotten off to a rocky start. I hadn't been able to sleep a lick the night before. Those kicks to my stomach had messed up something inside me. Hurt like h.e.l.l every time I tried to take a p.i.s.s. Which couldn't be good. I contemplated a trip to the hospital, but dismissed the idea. I hated doctors. I didn't even have a general pract.i.tioner, and no way was I visiting the ER in the middle of the night. I'd wait until I literally began p.i.s.sing blood before I endured that freak show.

Even though she'd cautioned me against calling, I still tried phoning my wife. Didn't matter. Jenny wasn't taking my calls. And my mother-in-law wasn't looking to do any favors.

Wet, cold slop filled the roadways, precipitation stuck between solid and liquid states, which only made a mess of things, weighing down the world. A felled tree and knocked-over telephone pole detoured traffic past the lumberyard, and the moron cashier at the Dunkin' Donuts drive-through added another half hour to my morning commute. I got to work late. Stepping into the office, pant cuffs stained with rock salt, my socks wet and toes squishy, I got a rude reminder that yesterday's victory was an apparition, and any celebration short-lived.

DeSouza stood at the gateway, curling a finger for me to follow him into his office. There was no smile this time. My coworkers, so quick to congratulate and praise me just a day earlier, now shuffled with their heads down, noses in their coffee, careful to look the other way.

When I stepped inside the boss's office, the heavy office door closed behind me with an ominous thud.